I’m sitting in the hearth room, sun streaming over my shoulder, listening to the odd sound of water rushing through the gutters. It’s in the forties right now and if I had the gumption it would be the perfect time to put up the lights outside.

It’s not happening.

I think that I’m doing pretty well considering I have all of the shopping done. I even shopped for the familial fur-babies, but I had to do that through Chewy. I’m still not up to the point where I can safely walk into a pet store without turning into a blubbering idiot.

Hell, I can’t even walk into the empty house without crying yet.

We did take down all of the holiday ornaments last weekend. I might get around to putting up the trees later today. I’m just not feeling that festive.

I did kind of want to hang the smaller tree upside down next to a bunch of lights with letters next to them to honor the last season of Stranger Things, but I don’t think it’s actually going to happen.

We also put up the dog stuff like beds and such. It will be a while before they get used again. I donated Tesla’s left over food and medications to the Last Day Dog Rescue organization.

I did leave the house over the weekend to attend the last two shows of 2025 (see below) and a holiday party with friends. That was damn social for me any time of the year!

I had a really bizarre thing happen last week. I paused in my mead bottling to sit in the sun room for a bit. I heard a weird, fast ticking noise coming from the kitchen. I ran in to find all of the burners on our range trying to ignite. I unplugged the stove and turned off the gas to be on the safe side. We had someone come out and look at it. He reseated all of the burner thingies and said that it was probably just a spill that made them go haywire. He did make a note of the model number of our stove and the pieces that might need to be replaced if it happened again, but it looks like a one off.

Listening To: I am listening to American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond by Jeremy Dauber. It is a pretty extensive look at horror fiction (and reality) so far. It may be a little too in depth to listen to as an audiobook, however. I’ve also been playing a lot of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Beastie Boys.

Currently Reading: Now that I can concentrate again, I am back to Joe Hill’s King Sorrow. This one is a pretty hefty tome, so I have been propping it on a pillow on my lap.

Current Obsession: I made it through almost all of the material from the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. I enjoyed the shorts more than the long form films, but that may have more to do with my current attention span. I finished up Harley Quinn this morning. We have about half a season left on our Castle rewatch (although we never made it to the end the first time so I’m not sure if it counts as a rewatch.

We had a great time at our last two appearances of 2025. Both the Perfect Scenario and REO Marketplace were cool little venues. The Triple B had an interesting scheme where attendees purchased book vouchers in order to get their drink tickets. If you are in Lansing and like creepy stuff, I highly suggest checking out the permanent stores at the REO Marketplace.

With those shows done, we’ve pretty much wrapped things up for this year. There’s still plenty of time to purchase books, however. Go here for ebooks and here for paperbacks. Remember, books are super easy to wrap!

“Come on man,” I can hear you saying (in my head), “Halloween is over. Can’t you leave your spooky shit behind for a while?”

“Silly person,” I reply. “No, of course I can’t. Besides, there are tons of creepy ass things associated with the end of the year holidays.”

Yeah, sigh all you want, but allow me to introduce you to some of my favorite parts of the holiday.

Krampus has made quite the resurgence lately. Many of you will probably recognize this horned creature now famous for his birch branch switches (or sometimes whips) and the basket to carry off naughty children on Krampusnacht, the night before St. Nicolas Day. I’ve read some theories that he accompanies Nick since it wouldn’t be seemly for a saint to be lashing children. Most popular in central Europe and Northern Italy, there are similar traditions in other parts of the world like the Dutch Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) and the French Père Fouettard (Father Whipper).

This latter has a similar backstory to Hans Trapp. In some stories Fouettard was a butcher who lured three wealthy students to his shop where he robbed them, slit their throats, and chopped them up for stew. Trapp has a similar backstory, but most tales have him stopped before he can actually make a meal of the child he kidnapped.

Frau Perchta is known in Austria and Bavaria as a witch who is in charge of judging whether children are naughty or nice. In this case, Krampus’ birch lash would be getting off easy as Perchta cuts open naughty children and stuffs their bodies with hay or straw.

Grýla (and her cohorts) were not originally associated with Christmas, appearing as far back as the 13th century (including a mention in the Prose Edda). This troll (or ogress depending on the teller of the tale) is a repulsive being who comes into town to beg for naughty children to eat. She is also the mother of the Yule Lads, a group of 13 beings who are now seen as relatively harmless gift givers. Good children who leave their shoes on the windowsill will receive a gift inside while disobedient children are more likely to get nothing or perhaps a rotten potato.

The traditional Yule Lads are little tricksters who start showing up on the 12th of December, one per day, and playing pranks for about two weeks. The first arrives on the 12th and leaves on Christmas, the second arrives on the 13th and leaves on the 26th, and so on. The following was taken from a Wikipedia article on them:

My favorite of these Icelandic tales is Grýla’s pet, the Yule Cat. The giant feline peeps through the windows of children to see if they received new clothing for Christmas. If the kids were naughty and didn’t get any (or, I guess, were poor), the Yule Cat eats them.

Similar in appearance to Krampus are the Kallikantzari of the Western Mediterranean who take time off from their attempts to end the world at Advent to come out and play pranks.

That’s going to do it for this week. Next week I plan to dive into some of the more fun traditions of the season. Then maybe we can wrap up the year with a visit from a certain horse skulled friend.

When you use Riverside, it's like carrying an entire podcast studio in your laptop bag. They let podcasters capture, edit, and publish in one place with no gear, no lag, and no stress.

Start Recording Today