You most definitely better watch out

The Schrute family's favorite Christmas tradition

• Joseph Darius Jaafari
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  Joseph Darius Jaafari was a staff writer for the PA Post. His work covering crime, the military and LGBTQ issues has been featured in The Marshall Project, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Atlantic and The New York Times. He is a graduate of the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced for VICE and The New York Post. He is a native Arizonan and infamous for his love of tacos.

Call him KrisKinkle, Pelsnichol or even the “Christmas Woman.” But he’s best known as The Belsnickle.

Unlike Krampus — a half demon, half goat that travels with Santa Claus and terrifyingly abuses children who have been naughty — the Belsnickle is his own kind of terrifying. Dressed in deer antlers and dirty furs, he enters childrens’ rooms, interrogates them on whether they’ve been good or bad, gives them candy and then hits them with switches while they scramble for their sweets. (For those of us who grew up in Middle Eastern families, this is what we call a “Tuesday.”)

The big difference between St. Nick’s simple “naughty or nice” Q&A and Belsnickle’s routine? Belsnickle hurls accusations and tries to get kids to admit that they’ve done something wrong to bar them from receiving presents this year. (Again, toddler Joseph is feeling very seen right now.)

The Belsnickle character comes from Germany, originally, and emigrated with the Pennsylvania Dutch. “Bel” stands for “fur” and “snickel” refers to Saint Nick, the brown-skinned saint from Asia Minor on whom Santa Claus is (very) loosely based.

For generations, the folklore around Belsnickle was kept alive in rural Pa. If you’ve seen “The Office,” you may remember the episode where Dwight Schrute attends a Christmas-themed party and dresses as the Belsnickle. (Side note: I actually have not seen a single episode of “The Office.” I was shamed last night at my local bar for not even knowing it’s set in Scranton.)

And, yes, the show got it right in that another companion to Saint Nick is Zwarte Piet, or “Black Pete,” who is portrayed in black face. Hopefully, we’ve all learned our lesson and nobody tries to take on that role this holiday.

For Pennsylvanians, there are yearly opportunities to take the kids to meet Belsnickle. Here’s a video of kids being interrogated by Belsnickle at a Christmas on the Farm event. Truly terrifying.

What are some of your favorite Pa.-based holiday traditions? Tell us in our Listening Post.

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