Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Krampus: A Definitive Knockoff Guide

              Krampuses are apparently the opposite of Santa Clauses in Alpine countries of Europe, doing the smiting role that a piece of coal does in our Christmases. That's a lot of eses's.  Earl declared it a  holiday a couple weeks prior and on Saturnalia Eve Morning I came up with this instead of wrapping presents and shit.

PART ONE
The Rite of the Burning of the Rite Aid Circular
       I didn't take any photos of this, and really all you need to do is light a fire so any circular will suffice.  Figure out a good spot and get some kindling and start lighting.  Took me a long time so use as many circulars as it takes.  This represents the relighting of timeless pagan ritual (fire in this case) so in the Jesus laden atmosphere it's tricky to get going.  Once it's lit real good go inside and refill the coffee and whatever other human shit you got to do.  I'm not saying there's ghosts or spirits or anything but they need solo time with the fire.  It'll go out quick though, so get back out there.


PART TWO
snack apps
       Find whatever is still around and growing, in this case chard and kale, knock off the hibernating bugs (or not), and throw it right on there.  If, for some reason it's actually winter where you live, you can just eat some other snack.  No pressure.  Note: this whole time you're really cultivating your forest fire scent.  Perfect for Christmas Eve dinner conversation starters.  Go back inside for more caffeine and human stuff.




PART THREE
Brunch
              Leaves a meal makes not so cook a decent meal, I brought out the dog bed so Mae could chill too.  Wrapped the egg with some kale.  Bring whatever you don't burn back inside.  Get more coffee.  If there's one important dogmatic principle other than the fire itself I think it's the coffee.



PART FOUR
Burn an Idle
           An idle is just something useless or unfinished.  In the case of this thing I made channel above the brow ridge I found unsatisfactory and it was just sitting by the back door for months.  Burn as many idles as you want for the rest of the fires duration.



PART FIVE
Bonus Rounds

     By 3 pm I'd had enough smoke and fire and had abandoned it.  Then upstairs came home and got on it.  The craziest shit is that he actually burned an idle without knowing about the whole idle thing.  One falling-apart bird feeder in fire.  Eventually we had to get ready for dinner.  We left.

          There were plenty of coals around 11pm and we lit it back up and kicked it for awhile.  The next morning it was still hot.. Merry Krampus, see you next year.