Knecht Ruprecht: For all the naughties in Germany

For those of you who don't know, I have decided to extend my stay in Germany until the end of this coming February. I am really excited to stay in Germany longer and spend the holidays with Max and his family - Max and I have also booked a ten day trip through Spain before Christmas, holla!

However there is one thing I really wish I had known about before I signed up to spend Christmas in Germany: Knecht Ruprecht, the evil version of Santa Claus. I swear I am not making this up - there is an evil Santa in Germany specifically for bad children! As legend has it Knecht Ruprecht (which translates into Servent or Farmhand Rupert in English) comes around on the eve of December 6th and 'asks children whether they can pray. If they can, they receive apples, nuts, and gingerbread. If they cannot, he beats the children with his bag of ashes.' Can you believe that shiz! Max claims he recalls hearing that Knecht Ruprecht also kidnaps the bad children and puts them in his sack, he also said he remembers being scared of Knecht Ruprecht as a little child! How awful!

Apparently, the Germans are pretty big on scaring the kids straight over here as a lot of the common children's fables end terribly for misbehaving children. For example one very common children's story tells a tale of two boys Max and Moritz who are pulling some mischevious pranks. They steal a chicken from an old lady's kitchen and put beetles in their uncles bed, etc., etc. The story ends with Max and Moritz getting caught slicing a sack of grain open by a farmer. The farmer puts the boy in the sack and takes it to the mill, then Max and Moritz are both ground to bits and fed to the ducks.

Yikes! I really hope I will be spared a visit from Knecht Ruprecht this year and get to spent some quality time with Santa instead! What do you think? Do you think you would be paid a visit from good ol' Farmhand Rupert if you were spending Christmas in Deutschland? I think I have been pretty well behaved, the worst I can expect is a little coal from my good man SC!