Santiglaus-Daag

I was supposed to fly to DC today, but since I feel more or less like I've been run over by a train, I decided to stay home sick today and fly tomorrow morning instead. And good thing, because December 6 is Santiglaus-Daag (Father Christmas Day) in Switzerland! Since this is the kind of thing you can't make up (Schmutzli?!?), I'll just quote directly from one of our expat magazines:

Santiglaus lives in the Black Forest where he spends all year writing down what every child does in a big book...On the evening of December 6 he comes to visit all the children, with his book and his donkey, loaded down by a sack full of presents and accompanied by his side-kick Schmutzli. Schmutzli is a dark Father Christmas who carries a bundle of sticks with which to whip bad children (it's a very old custom, you can tell) and brings along a second sack, in which he puts the really really bad children and drags them kicking and screaming back to the Black Forest for a year.

Children are usually expected to learn a rhyme or song off by heart to recite to Santiglaus. One of the most well-known (though least recited--it takes a hardened child to actually say this when face-to-face with a real live Santiglaus) goes:

Santi-Niggi-Näggi
Hinderem Ofe steggi
Gib mr Nuss und Biire
Denn kummi wider fiire

(Santi-Niggi-Näggi,
I'm hiding behind the stove,
hand over the nuts and pears,
then I'll come out again.)

A common urban legend you'll often hear in Switzerland is that a cousin/uncle/friend-of-a-friend was once actually packed into the sack by Schmutzli. Don't believe it! Most children are so impressed when meeting Santiglaus in the flesh that anything more than a very mild ticking off will result in tears, being put in a sack would probably cause severe trauma.