“DO YOU WANT TO BE KRAMPUS?” Santa Claus, globality and locality of Christmas tradition

In this paper the author argues that the Christmas holidays, notwithstanding their international standing as a religious and commercial season, are most productively understood as a glocal phenomena, a concept intended to link the local with the global in a dialectics of homogenization and particularism. Juxtaposing data from Hungary and Eastern Europe, the author provides an anthropological analysis that highlights the transformative power Christmas traditions and Santa Claus have played in diverse cultural settings since the late twentieth-century. For even the imposition of communist ideology, conceived as a globalizing force, failed to eradicate images of Santa Claus; both his persona and that of his devilish imp, Krampus, survived such ruthless attempts at indoctrination with only the slightest of modifications. In view of its economic and cultural significance, this paper argues in favor of international recognition of Saint Nicholas day, December 6^th, as a glocal civil holiday.