Finland ups the ante with a wonderfully crazy fringe character called Nuuttipukki -- a full-on horror movie monster who goes from house to house after the holidays, emptying the larder and drinking all the beer. If you don't get him drunk enough, a curse will fall on your house and the whole year will be a conga line of ridiculously bad luck. Nuuttipukki usually turns up as late as Jan. 13, thus turning the first weeks of a new year into a nonstop orgy of panicked waiting.
Aino Oksanen
"Gimme all your beer, it's for the holidays. C'mon, don't make this weird."
Why They Need to Be a Part of the Holidays:
Because they're awesome, that's why. These guys would essentially give us the option of turning Christmas into a second Halloween, only we could replace trick-or-treating with gift-giving, Christmas-style, and rampant drinking, Nuuttipukki-style. I don't know about you, but "Halloween with gifts and even more booze" sure seems like the best idea in human history to me.
This prospect has not gone entirely unnoticed. Krampus parties are already a thing in America and, of course, the character makes regular appearances in Austrian Christmas celebrations. And dressing up as creepy horn-beasts is just scratching the surface of the goat theme's full potential: For instance, the Swedish town of Gavle builds a giant, $30,000 Christmas straw goat every year. Once the Gavle Goat is up, half the townspeople rampantly protect it, while the other half apparently conspire to burn it down.
nymag.com
Sure, they could just build two of them every year, but it's way more fun this way.
You know what? Let's bring that tradition in as well. This season, let's all just say fuck it to regular Christmas, drink some beer, wear weird goat costumes, and build great big things out of straw. Because if there is a more badass way to celebrate the spirit of the holidays than a horde of drunken Nuuttipukkis playing a city-wide game of arson tag, I have no idea what it could be.
Always on the go but can't get enough of those sweet, sweet dick jokes? We have an Android app and iOS reader for you to pick from so you never miss another article.
As 2013 draws to a close, be sure to check out Cracked's year in review because, well, we know you don't remember it half as well as you think.