"Good tidings we bring, to you and your kin, good tidings for Christmas..."
Donna sang along with everyone in the group, her breath fogging and drifting away in the light breeze. She smiled as she sang while enjoying the crips, night air while glancing around at her fellow carolers. The six men in her group were all wearing matching black wool pea coats and top hats, the matching number of women in older style winter coats in a kaleidoscope of colors, many with fur trim around their wrists and necks. Everyone had red, green or candy cane stripped scarves, Donna with her long auburn hair in a ponytail and an enormous fur muffler covering both ears.
"Now bring us a figgy pudding, now bring us a figgy pudding, now bring us a figgy pudding..."
Donna's upturned button nose was a bright red, the handkerchief she had concealed beneath the songbook in her gloved hands used to chase the occasional drip between songs. She and her friends had been caroling from house to house for the past three hours, not all of which had been spent singing with the occasional stop for hot chocolate and even figgy pudding at one house!
"Good tidings for Christmas and a happy new year!"
The song came to an end, the family, a mother and father with two young girls and a boy standing in front of their upscale ranch clapping in delight. Donna could catch a glimpse of Giest Reservoir behind their house, the glow of down town Indy lighting up the clouds from below in the distance.
"Thank you so much!" the woman was saying as her children handed out cups of hot chocolate, "That was wonderful!"
Donna smiled, truly happy to be out caroling and nodded in thanks to the boy when he handed her a cup.
"Thank you," Donna said, the boy glancing away shyly before hurrying off to hide behind his mother.
Donna watched him go while she sipped her drink, fragrant steam wafting away.
"Maybe we could do the Admiral's Landing loop and then call it a night," Andrew who had organized the night's caroling said over the general conversation.
People agreed and handed empty cups back to the children before walking down the short drive to a van. Donna took a quick, surreptitious glance around to see if anyone was watching, her hand ready to wipe her drippy nose with her handkerchief and then froze, her heart slamming in her chest.
It was difficult to see but a figure stood just inside the edge of the woods that separated the home they had been visiting from the Reservoir, an outlandishly tall figure with a long, triangular white face, deep set dark eyes and goatee holding an even taller pole with a hook at the far end. A figure with two tusks and matching spiral horns a foot long on either side of its head.
"Donna, is everything all right?" Kay, one of the girls she only knew from the choir club asked.
Donna jumped and glanced quickly at Kay before looking into the woods again, the apparition replaced by the dark boles of a few maple interspersed with bushes and undergrowth.
"Uh... yea," Donna replied, glancing from the woods to Kay and back, "I thought... yea, I'm fine."
Donna smiled and hastily wiped her nose before climbing into the back of the van with a final, quick glance towards the edge of the woods.
The Admiral's Landing loop was if anything even nicer than the previous neighborhoods, the loop inclosing a small lake with expensive upscale two story homes backed up to it. The carolers went house to house, families coming out into the crips air to listen, but the joy Donna had felt was marred by that half glimpsed figure.
The carolers were at the second to last house walking up the driveway, colorful inflatables of snowmen, reindeer pulling a sled, candy canes and even a giant inflatable green Grinch decorating the lawn. The house was awash in color and light, the eaves decorated in icicles with blue LED's giving the impression of them dripping and a giant star adorning the roof.
Donna was smiling and happy again, the apparition in the woods forgotten when she caught sight of a small statuette between the legs of the reindeer wearing pelts and furs as a coat with a long, narrow goat like face, two horns adorning its head and holding a tall pole topped by a rounded hook. Donna froze in her tracks staring at it until she was nearly bowled over from behind by someone walking into her.
"Oh, sorry," one of the men said apologetically while righting his top hat, "Are you Ok?"
"I'm..." Donna began, her eyes never leaving the creepy, ugly little statuette, "What is that thing?"
The man glanced over to where she was staring and then shrugged, "It's a Krampus."
"A... what?" Donna asked.
"Krampus," the man replied, "Kinda an evil Santa Clause for people who are really hung up on Halloween and just can't drop it and move on to the next season I guess."
"An evil Santa?" Donna asked a bit bewildered, "You're serious?"
"Yep, serious," the man said with a small smile, "It's Eastern European or something like that... Krampus comes to take away all the naughty kids or sometimes spanks them with a switch or Shepard's crook.
"Why, have you been naughty?"
Donna jerked and turned to stare at the man who's name she thought was Doug from all the rehearsals, his eyes sparkling in delight at her red faced reaction before nodding towards the front of the home where the choir was getting ready to start singing.
"Come on," Doug said with a grin and held out an elbow for Donna to slip her arm through to lead her to the front porch.
Donna's heart wasn't in the last few Christmas carols that the group sang and barely registered the fact that there was a general consensus to go to a local bar and grill when they arrived back at the van at the end of the nights singing.
The image of the apparition in the woods kept reappearing as she rode in the back of the van without speaking, the long, narrow, triangular goat like face, the goatee, spiral horns and especially the pole that Doug had called a Shepard's crook.
She'd never heard of a Krampus or even a Shepard's crook except for that thing in the children's rhyme about sheep, so how the hell could she imagine something in the woods that she'd never seen or heard of? Donna pulled out her phone and did a quick search and then scrolled through all the images of people dressed in animal skins with demonic, animalistic faces and curved horns while her heart raced.
"Still thinking of that statue?" Doug suddenly said from beside her causing Donna to jump, "As jumpy as you are, you'd think you were worried about getting switched yourself!"
"Donna," Donna replied a bit repressively while putting her phone away.
Doug smiled and then tilted his head to the side when it became clear that Donna wasn't going to reply.
"There was a Krampuslauf a few weeks a go in Seattle," Doug finally added, "It was... interesting."
"Did you get switched?" Donna asked sarcastically.
"Well... actually..." Doug replied with a grin.
Donna rolled her eyes but also smiled back.
"Why the sudden interest?" Doug asked and gestured towards the seat next to Donna, "Just that little statue?"
Donna shifted over enough for Doug to sit and gave a small shrug, the vision of the apparition chasing away her smile.
"Why would anyone want to make Christmas into... something scary and ugly and mean?" Donna asked with a shiver.
"Santa's a little bit scary, and ugly and mean... if you're a bad boy or girl," Doug replied, "But... a lot of folk tales aren't as soft and fuzzy like what Disney likes to portray them as. Hanzel and Gretel... if your entire family was going to starve before the winter broke unless you had a few less mouths to feed, what would you do.
"I mean, originally Snow White's own mother wanted to off her, not some wicked stepmom!"
"You're talking about Snow White," Donna shot back, "Do you really blame her mom?"
Doug snorted just as the van pulled into the Twin Peak's sports pub, Donna barely glancing out the window at the cobblestone façade.
"Can I buy you a drink?" Doug asked as the van's door slid open and people began to pile out.
"Maybe," Donna replied and held out her hand for Doug to help her stand before making her way out stooped over.
"Don't laugh, I know what I saw!" Donna had to almost yell over the blare of music and conversation an hour later when Doug handed her another shot of Jägermeister and a beer, "I've never even heard of a... of a cramp... krump... whatever the hell it is before so how could I imagine seeing one!"
Donna tossed back the shot and quickly chased it with a swallow of beer, her head already reeling from the half dozen shots that had preceded it. Doug coughed back a laugh of his own while doing his own shot and then had to lean over the table to control his coughs and laughs.
"I think you're just nervous!" Doug yelled when he finally managed to stopped coughing, "Has someone been... naughty!"
Donna felt her face heat, her eyes looking everywhere around the crowded raucous sports bar except at Doug who only laughed harder.
"Oh my!" Doug said gleefully and then leaned in closer to Donna so that only she could hear, "How... naughty have you been!"
"You're the one who got switched, not me!" Donna shot back.
"There's still time before Christmas," Doug replied, "So how naughty have you been?"
Donna felt her face flush and even brighter red, the idea of getting switched one that she had never thought about. She couldn't even imagine how it would work, what would be used or if she'd even be able to feel it through her clothes. She imagined what a leather belt would feel like through the denim cloth of a pair of tight jeans and then bit her lip at the though of a belt slapping across her bare ass while she wore her black lace thong panties. Donna licked her lips and looked up to catch Doug's eye watching her intently.
"You only get switched if you get caught being bad," Donna replied.
