{"id":43195,"date":"2025-12-19T17:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T22:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=43195"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:21:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T20:21:55","slug":"my-voice-christmas-cryptids-bring-haunts-to-the-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/entertainment\/2025\/12\/19\/my-voice-christmas-cryptids-bring-haunts-to-the-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"My Voice: Christmas cryptids bring haunts to the holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Picture a winter season from centuries past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nights are long, the air is cold and all is quiet except for the wind howling through the trees outside. Starvation and illness are constant threats, meaning communities need to come together to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This makes it laughable to think that \u201cspooky season\u201d ends on Halloween. The \u201cscary ghost stories\u201d referenced in Andy Williams\u2019 famous \u201cIt\u2019s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year\u201d have fallen out of fashion in recent years, but used to be an important part of the festivities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are some Christmas cryptids that should never be forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mari Lwyd<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Welsh specter takes the form of a skeletal horse-woman and has mysterious origins<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Mari Lwyd is one of Wales’ most beloved holiday figures.<\/strong> VISIT MONMOUTHSHIRE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In Celtic mythology, gray and white horses have the power to come and go from the spirit world at will. Other stories place her at the stable the night Jesus was born. In this version, she was a pregnant mare who was cast out of the stable and now roams the countryside trying to find a place to give birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Mari Lwyd makes her way through a town, she is accompanied by a raucous group who go door to door singing traditional songs. The songs are often cleverly insulting to the homeowner, who is expected to reply in mischievous verse as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Mari Lwyd and her gang win what is essentially an old-fashioned rap battle, they are allowed to enter the house and help themselves to the family\u2019s food, drink and anything else that catches their eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t all bad news for the family though; Mari Lwyd\u2019s presence in the house is believed to bring good luck<\/a> for the next year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Yule Cat and Yule Lads<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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The Yule Cat is said to tower over villages and hunt people.<\/strong> SHUTTERSTOCK<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Iceland is a highly superstitious country<\/a>, and its people have good reason to fear the long nights of winter. One of the embodiments of this fear is in the shockingly unsung Yule Cat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This giant feline\u2019s origins are thought to come from sheep farmers in the 1800s<\/a>, who would be rewarded for the year\u2019s hard work with new clothes made from the harvested wool. The Yule Cat\u2019s M.O. is to hunt and eat people who did not receive warm clothes for Christmas, creating an analogy for the need to prepare for the harsh winter weather. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, the Yule Cat also came to be a warning against children misbehaving, joining the ranks of Krampus and the Icelandic ogre Gryla. Naughty children would not only go without a new wool sweater, but run the risk of being gobbled up like an unfortunate mouse.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Figurines of the Yule Lads with their mother Gryla and the Yule Cat. <\/strong>BUSTRAVEL ICELAND<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The aforementioned Gryla is rarely mentioned alone and more often depicted with her thirteen sons, the Yule Lads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are gnomelike village menaces with names like \u201cDoor Slammer,\u201d \u201cWindow Peeper,\u201d \u201cCandie Stealer\u201d and \u201cBowl Licker,\u201d not leaving much to the imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pere Fouettard<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As many can attest, the scariest monsters are often human. This is the case with Pere Fouettard, the legendary French butcher<\/a> who travels alongside Saint Nicholas. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Pere Fouettard was sentenced to serve Saint Nicholas as punishment for a terrible crime. <\/strong>ATLAS OBSCURA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This backstory is truly horrific. Fouettard is said to have lured some lost children into his forest home, then waited for them to fall asleep before killing them and chopping them into cubes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years went by before Saint Nicholas discovered the crime and forced Fouettard to confess. He then brought the children back to life and sentenced the butcher to live forever in his service. Ever since, Saint Nick has rewarded good children while Fouettard has punished the bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This idea of holly-jolly reward and cruel punishment existing together is actually the norm in most European traditions. The American version of Santa Claus is unique in his lack of an evil counterpart, threatening only a lump of coal for those who end up on the \u201cnaughty list.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These examples are only the tip of the \u201ccultural chaos\u201d iceberg that is the winter season. In a time of rampant commercialism and cheesy Hallmark movies, a trip down the collective memory lane can make the darkest time of the year much richer and deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Kichline, multimedia editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Picture a winter season from centuries past. The nights are long, the air is cold and all is quiet except for the wind howling through the trees outside. Starvation and illness are constant threats, meaning communities need to come together to survive. This makes it laughable to think that \u201cspooky season\u201d ends on Halloween. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":43206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3613,2104,2616,3361,5386,2217,3524,3346,5390,3603,2150],"tags":[2292],"class_list":["post-43195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-entertainment","category-featured","category-history","category-holidays","category-my-voice","category-my-voice-2","category-off-beat","category-photos","category-society","category-world","tag-christmas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/740raiK.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-beH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43195"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43209,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43195\/revisions\/43209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}