Santa's Brought the Krampus

November 24, 2023

That's the title of the Christmas carol I wrote about the Krampus. If you're thinking, "wait… what's a Krampus?" you might want to start here.

Hear it!

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Lyrics

Jimmy heard a jingle, a jangle jing-a-ling
He’s headed for the driveway, wondering "What did Santa bring?"
Turns out it wasn’t sleigh bells ringing out a glad refrain
But a stern and scowling bishop with a monster on a chain

Chorus
Santa's brought the Krampus, he's coming 'round to get us
Santa's brought the Krampus and I sure hope you've been good
Santa's brought the Krampus, won't be no second chances
Santa's brought the Krampus and he's in your neighborhood

Kylie heard the clatter of something on the roof
"Santa’s here! Oh Santa’s here! I heard a reindeer hoof!”
She’s rushed outside to have a look, and I’ll tell you what she saw
No carrot-munchin’ reindeer snout, but a child-crunchin’ jaw

So lend an ear, dear listener, and a warning take by me
If you think you hear a "Ho, Ho, Ho!" and you go out to see
I hope that you’ve been well-behaved in your holiday revelry
Cause you might find out that it’s Saint Nick and a squad of devilry

Play it!

The sheet music is available here from the Internet Archive.

So why did you write a song about the Krampus?

First, the Krampus is fun. Every couple years he resurfaces as something of a meme on the Internet. He’s appeared in a couple of cartoons^[1], children’s books^[2], and a horror movie^[3]. He needs a song or two.

Second, I have a fascination with dark, weird Christmas carols. Songs about:

• Eating a boar's head
• A wrathful Jesus annihilating a farmer and his beasts and devastating his family
• Games of Hide and Seek gone horribly wrong

And I don’t think I’m alone in this. Take Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for example, or the odd line about ghost stories in “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”.

Lastly, certain news events circa 2016 irritated me, and the idea of a saccharine Soft Drink Santa Claus coming down the chimney with his cheery red cheeks didn’t sit well with me. I thought Santa would be too ticked off for his usual guise. This drove me to put pen to paper and write what would become “Santa’s Brought the Krampus”. I think of the song as a pastiche of “Up on the Housetop”: twisting the idea of children discovering their own unique surprise on Christmas.

Special Thanks

The Wayne Ukulele Club, who let me bring it to our meetups and are willing to humor me and sing along.

Everyone who gets some joy out of it. It would warm my heart if you copied, shared, and sang the song. For this reason, I have recorded and transcribed the song material to the best of my ability, and I present them to you for use under a CC-BY-SA-NC license.