148. Krampus Is Coming to Town: Inside San Antonio’s Controversial Holiday Parade

Bob Rivard [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. This week's guest is Bob Crittenden. He's the senior Scrum Manager at usaa. That's a job and a title he will elaborate on and do course here. More importantly, for the purposes of this episode of Big City Small Town, Bob is the founder of San Antonio's Krampus parade, which debuted last year in King William in the historic King William neighborhood, drawing 10,000 people in its first iteration. Paraders, onlookers and a handful of protesters, by the way, who objected strenuously to the season celebration that has deep roots in Central European and Germanic Alpine holiday culture. The second annual parade will be held next week on Friday, December 5th in King William at Beethoven Manicure.

Bob Rivard [00:00:59]:
It's expected to draw another big holiday season crowd eager to participate in San Antonio's newest cultural gathering. Bob Crittenden, welcome to Big City Small Town.

Bob Crittenden [00:01:10]:
Thanks for having me, Bob.

Bob Rivard [00:01:12]:
So before we get into Krampus, what is a senior Grum Master?

Bob Crittenden [00:01:17]:
Sure, I know that might be one of the more bizarre titles out there for making a living, but it is a legitimate title. In software development. There's an approach to making software called Agile. And my role is different from being a manager of teams. I am the facilitator of multiple teams and instead of telling team members what to do or how to do it, I leverage the combined intellect of the team and help them to figure it out on their own. The Agile methodology, it has like time boxed ceremonies and we, we conduct, I conduct these ceremonies for the team and in that way we're able to make better quality software in a more predictable way. And most, most modern, most modern companies use this Agile method. It's also called at large places Scaled Agile, where you have like thousands of different software developers.

Bob Crittenden [00:02:23]:
So that's called safe scale agile.

Bob Rivard [00:02:26]:
All right, well, that's enough about that. Let's talk about Krampus and for many in our audience who have never heard the word and don't know about the cultural tradition, give us the overview.

Bob Crittenden [00:02:37]:
Krampus is the Companion to St Nicholas, and he appears with St Nicholas on a very specific day in the religious calendar of what was medieval Europe, especially the Tyrol. That would be Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland. Other places, the Alps. The Alps, that's right. So this day is known as the eve of St. Nicholas's feast. St. Nicholas's feast is on the 6th, and so the eve is on the 5th.

Bob Crittenden [00:03:14]:
Traditionally St. Nicholas would visit your house and he would usually be maybe a neighbor or your uncle dressed up as the priest. St. Nicholas, he hadn't turned it, he hasn't become Santa Claus yet. And he would come to your house and ask you if you've been a good little boy, good little girl, ask you if you could say some prayers and encouraging you to be a good little boy or a little girl. Meanwhile, your uncle was dressed up as Krampus and he would either be looking at you through the window or in the room, menacing you. And Krampus would discourage you from being bad. So you could clearly see that you had two choices, St.

Bob Crittenden [00:04:02]:
Nicholas or Krampus.

Bob Rivard [00:04:03]:
And Krampus was diabolical.

Bob Crittenden [00:04:06]:
Absolutely. So he is often portrayed as a devilish character. So he's got horns, he's got fur, which is a natural costume that you might be able to put together if you are in the Alps and you have a bunch of sheep around. So he would, he had. Obviously there's some other accoutrements that come along with Krampus. He's got a basket. In several places he's represented with a basket and that's big enough to hold children if they're bad. It will take you off to.

Bob Crittenden [00:04:43]:
You don't know where. You just, you don't want to get in the basket. Also, he was known to carry a birch rod and the birch rod is for spanking you. In other places it is horse hair. You might have a rod with horsehair also depicted with chains. Oftentimes my understanding is that this was not so much to chain children, but to show that he is subordinate to St. Nicholas. But.

Bob Crittenden [00:05:10]:
Yeah, so all these different clues are, you know, kind of sinister and scary to children. But.

Bob Rivard [00:05:19]:
But this all turned into a. An annual parade, did it?

Bob Crittenden [00:05:23]:
Not sure. So it started as a house visit and then later turned into what's called the Krampus Lauf or Krampus run. And that's still. Well, all of these traditions are still happening today, but the Krampus Lauf or Krampus run, that happens in maybe the public square. And you would you designate a few nights and you can be a spectator? Yeah, well, as a spectator, you'll watch the cramp has come out. And you know, my understanding is that maybe if there's two different nights, one is going to be more adult oriented and more fan participation than the other night. So if you show up on that night, you're sort of entering into a social agreement that if you engage with the Krampus, they can spank you, they can spank you with their birch rods, they can harass you and otherwise, you know, engage with you as you might expect a Krampus to. But yep, that that happens to this day.

Bob Crittenden [00:06:28]:
It's happening right now. We just saw some videos from Austria, so they've already started.

Bob Rivard [00:06:34]:
Now Crittenden strikes me as a good English last name. How did you come to decide that you were going to be the founder of Krampus Lauf in San Antonio?

Bob Crittenden [00:06:43]:
Sure. So Krampus just one of my several interests and I suppose anything could have happened. So any parade could have come up or not. But a friend of mine, Jennifer Hurt Stanford, she had already hosted a Krampus party at the Herman Sons German Lodge on Sousa Chavez. And that was in 2023 and it was just a party at the Rats of Color Bar. Of course I attended. And then after that party she approached me to see if I would be interested in organizing a parade that would start at the Blue Star and then end at the Ras Keller. And the idea was I would be sort of like the Pied Piper to bring everybody to the Raskelar Bar.

Bob Crittenden [00:07:36]:
And it was. And that's how I got into it. That's how I started of course, the rest of the story, the Herman sons fits about 200 people and we brought about 10,000 people so we couldn't get everybody into that.

Bob Rivard [00:07:50]:
That's remarkable that a first time event drew that kind of people. Of course, King William used to be Kaiser Wilhelm neighborhood. It's one of the oldest historic neighborhoods in the state and it's founded by Germans and in a a city with a such strong Hispanic Mexican roots. There's also a lot of German history and culture here. So it's, it's kind of appropriate that it occurring there. But I'm mystified that 10,000 people, which is more than many more than show up on first Friday, for example. How did you attract a crowd like that?

Bob Crittenden [00:08:25]:
I can't say that it was anything I did personally other than just kind of talk to a journalist. STEPHANIE coithen San Antonio Current she broke the story. After that it started to get picked up by local media, but really it wasn't until some local fundamentalists protested the event from the steps of City hall that the public interest started to grow. And I believe it was, I don't know what, what bureau, the news bureau, local bureau started the term, but it turned in what we called Krampus Gate. And so there was like a daily drip of what kind of devastation was going to happen in the City. When we brought the parade, what was.

Bob Rivard [00:09:13]:
The nature of the protest? This is sort of like protesting Grimm's fairy tales.

Bob Crittenden [00:09:17]:
Sure. I remember there some people said that it would result in murder and rape, things of this nature. But probably what really was resonated with San Antonians was this idea that we, the parade would open a portal to hell or some other, other dimension. And so the, you know, San Antonians embraced the, the idea of this absurd idea of opening up a portal. And so I remember reading comments in social media. I love the comments, I just couldn't get enough of them. But I remember somebody saying I wasn't gonna go until I heard there's a portal. But now I'm definitely going.

Bob Crittenden [00:10:06]:
And so there were portal sightings and you know, all of this.

Bob Rivard [00:10:10]:
And your, and your website is called the Krampus portal.

Bob Crittenden [00:10:12]:
That's correct.

Bob Rivard [00:10:13]:
It'll take visitors who knows where. If you're.

Bob Crittenden [00:10:16]:
And that's right.

Bob Rivard [00:10:17]:
Brave enough to call it out.

Bob Crittenden [00:10:19]:
That's right. I, I struggled with what to call that website. And our graphic designer, Dick Vanderwerst, he said it's right in your lap. It's Krampus portal. You don't have to think hard about this. Let's move on. It's Krampus Portal. So that's how we got it.

Bob Rivard [00:10:33]:
Well, we should point out that if there were 10,000 people at the first parade, perhaps 50 of them were protesters. And so it's sort of a, almost beside the point interest. But you know, San Antonio loves a parade. Any excuse for a parade. And this is a city permitted event. So this year you're moving it to Beethoven. Manicore the Great, you know, century old, older than a century German cultural institute that's based in King William and that certainly won't hold 10,000 people in there. So what's going to happen on the evening of December 5th? Take us through the whole plan.

Bob Crittenden [00:11:13]:
Sure. So first of all, before I get to Beethoven, just mentioned that, you know, with all those people, the city of San Antonio asked that we step up traffic control so we have more traffic control this year. And by that police, they also asked that we put barricades in place. So we have barricades, additional traffic control, our streets closing. They. So they are closing for the parade. However, if you are, I just want everybody in King William to know this. All my neighbors, if you need to get in or out, absolutely the police are going to let you in and out of the parade.

Bob Crittenden [00:11:49]:
We will stop the parade and you can get through. But for all practical purposes, yes, we're barricading the streets just on a parade route. And you can see the parade route@krampusportal.com and it's essentially like a figure eight starting, starting and stopping at Beethoven.

Bob Rivard [00:12:09]:
What time are events going to kick off?

Bob Crittenden [00:12:12]:
7:30. The parade starts. We suspect we'll finish at 8:30. The Beethoven is going to block off the street in front of it. So we can double the size to about 2,000. So we're gonna go. Yep, that's right. So last year we maybe had 200 people at the Herman Suns.

Bob Crittenden [00:12:34]:
Thousands of people outside. This year we can get 2000 people into Beethoven Manicore. With that said, we changed the route to come down South Alamo so that all of the local businesses on South Alamo can participate and host after parties. You can think of Beethoven as the headquarters for the Krampus festivities because it's going to be a two day event. I'll come back to that as a headquarters. But we're going to have all these other satellite parties. The Jewel, the good kind, Bruno's. Oh yeah, Liberty Bar, and then as far north as House of Spirits.

Bob Crittenden [00:13:17]:
These are all going to be places where we're going to have after parties and maybe even what used to be the good kind. We might have one there too.

Bob Rivard [00:13:26]:
South St. Mary Street.

Bob Crittenden [00:13:27]:
That's right.

Bob Rivard [00:13:28]:
I saw on your portal some weeks ago a deadline for registering for the parade. So people that want to get their devil mask on and their costume, they, they can come as onlookers. But to be in the official parade, can you not just jump in or how does, how, how is this going to work? I know you have crews K e r W e s like, like Mardi Gras. Explain the difference between being an onlooker maybe and being actually in the parade.

Bob Crittenden [00:13:57]:
Sure. So this year there is a distinction. So I, for my own gratification, I invited the public last year to join in the parade. And because that has been, you know, my experience in maybe not so much Mardi Gras, but you know, other parades in New Orleans you just walk with the parade. We can't do that this year. So there will be a distinction between a marcher, someone who's marching in the parade, and people coming to watch the parade. However, if you would like to come in costume, by all means. This is a celebration of Krampus and all these Yuletide characters.

Bob Crittenden [00:14:40]:
Please come in costume. In fact, we're gonna have costume contest at the Beethoven and stuff. But there will be a distinction between marchers and watchers. The crews so we did have a. We asked the public for volunteer crews to march in the parade and we have met that deadline but we're still getting crews that want to join. But we capped it off. We're at about 30 crews right now and that it's hard to tell but we think the numbers are going to of marching crew members will be. Will jump from about 125 last year to up to 400 or more this year.

Bob Crittenden [00:15:20]:
So it's going to be a much bigger parade. We have yeah, 30 crews and you know we published a list of who we think we have who we had like two weeks ago in a cold. So but we'll post those on the.

Bob Rivard [00:15:34]:
Website privatesport.com and will there be entertainment at Beethoven and and an admission charge which is typical there or how is that going to work? Do you have music?

Bob Crittenden [00:15:44]:
We sure do. It looks like this first year is a freebie. No, no cover charge at. No cover charge at Beethoven no cover charge could change. If it does it will go up to like $5 but at the moment it's free. But we will give you a wristband just to make sure we don't go over capacity and there there is entertainment. So the doors at Beethoven will open up at 3 o'.

Bob Rivard [00:16:09]:
Clock.

Bob Crittenden [00:16:10]:
The bar and food at 4 o'.

Bob Rivard [00:16:12]:
Clock.

Bob Crittenden [00:16:14]:
DJ Thunder Rack will start at 5 o'. Clock. So as if you want to be there when the crews are marshaling and getting their costumes together and getting into spirit, you can go. The parade will roll out at 7:30. At that time the Beethoven Dance band which is your conventional German Oompa band, not an UPA band, they're a concert band. They will play and they come in leader hose in and journals and everything. So which is appropriate? They will play for the duration of the parade probably till and then when we we're going to come back around 8:30 we have Anthony the poet who is going to recite a custom Krampus themed poem. I have not seen a draft of it yet but I'm sure it's going to be great.

Bob Crittenden [00:17:12]:
You should check him out if you never heard of him. He's. He's a three time poetry slam grandmaster winner and he does a lot of his poetry is funny. He's on YouTube. Followed by a ceremony, the Golden Birch Rod ceremony where we will the Valkyries of on Krampus. The organizers of the parade will recognize people from the community that have supported us. And then following that DJ Sue Problema will finish the night off with her DJ set. She's very well known DJ and our favorite here in San Antonio while that's happening.

Bob Crittenden [00:17:56]:
I mean you're going to enjoy this. The, the, the sounds of DJ Su problema. We will continue our ceremony by enshrining all of the crews into the parade this year so they will all be sort of sworn in and given a medal.

Bob Rivard [00:18:12]:
Ah yes, let's talk about your medal because there's a sub phylum of Fiesta goers that are fanatics about metal collecting. So your first medal was issued Fiesta earlier this year because in fact you added a very interesting twist to Krampus and made it a Fiesta event by associating it with Mexican American cultural traditions. I'll have you talk about that a little bit. But people that are Fiesta metal collectors that might have missed this Fiesta Krampus event can get your medal there and probably look forward to another medal in 2026. Fiesta.

Bob Crittenden [00:18:51]:
Absolutely. And we have, we have T shirts and more merch for at the Beethoven.

Bob Rivard [00:18:56]:
Talk about what you did at Fiesta this year. And I assume that the usual rules apply and it'll have to go on for at least three years before the Fiesta commission will consider you an official member of the family.

Bob Crittenden [00:19:09]:
That's right. Let me back it up a little bit by saying that my wife Denise and I went to the first ever international Krampus organizers convention in Seattle this year because we take the parade very seriously. Because. And we want. We know it's. We are so excited. I'm not burned out. I have not lost any excitement.

Bob Crittenden [00:19:34]:
It's only grown.

Bob Rivard [00:19:35]:
No, you've hit on something remarkable here and we're looking forward to being part of it.

Bob Crittenden [00:19:40]:
Yeah, we saw that there's like a different. There's a range of how Krampus is experienced in the world and in the United States. So on one end you have this very purist, if you will, way to experience Krampus. This is what we talked about with the house visits or a Krampus louf. And these are Austrian imported wood carved masks. Real goat fur, real fur trods. Okay. That's one end and we have cruise in or it's called a pass.

Bob Crittenden [00:20:16]:
It's German word. A P, A S S Pass is a collection of. Of Krampus. So we have that one end and that's experience here in the United States. And the other end would be more like the Valkyries of on Krampus here in San Antonio and maybe also like the crew of Krampus in New Orleans where anything goes. And so we have parades, we have. And we have this World building. And that's why I brought it up.

Bob Crittenden [00:20:42]:
Here in San Antonio we have this other folklore. It's called the devil in the dance hall. You may have heard it. And it's very short. I'll describe it. It's always. It can sometimes be Good Friday. And maybe the sisters in a family are.

Bob Crittenden [00:21:03]:
I want to go to a party or the cantina and go out dancing. But the family warns them again, cautions them against doing this because of, you know, you don't. The kinds of people you can meet there they go. Anyway, they sneak out of the house and there's a character at the cantina that is mesmerizing, handsome. And in the story, the ladies are compelled to dance with this character almost to the point of exhaustion.

Bob Rivard [00:21:36]:
He's a great dancer.

Bob Crittenden [00:21:37]:
He's a great. He's a great dancer. Almost as if he's. Has. Holds you under a spell. At some point somebody notices that this mysterious dancer has cloven hooves or often one cloven hoof and one chicken foot. And then when that happens, the gig is up. There's a puff of smoke, maybe some.

Bob Crittenden [00:21:59]:
The smell of sulfur in the air. And he disappears.

Bob Rivard [00:22:01]:
It's the devil.

Bob Crittenden [00:22:02]:
That's the devil. The devil in the dance hall. And that's a warning. Also a warning, just like the Krampus myth of discouraging bad behavior in our youth and encouraging good behavior. In other words, don't sneak out of the house and go to the bar. Okay, so we thought about it and we. It doesn't really make. Why would Krampus be a fiesta? Well, you know, wouldn't unless he was maybe visiting a family member.

Bob Crittenden [00:22:33]:
Who's to say Krampus, this devilish character is not cousins with our local devil. Devil in the dance hall. And so we decided, yes, they are cousins. And so the devil in the dance hall, we gave him a name, Kiko. And we have another medal. I didn't bring it today, but it says Krampus is my primo. So we established that these two people related. And at our fiesta event.

Bob Rivard [00:23:03]:
Where did you do that?

Bob Crittenden [00:23:03]:
We did that at the good kind. An all vinyl live soundtrack from DJ Sue Problema. And she played spooky cumbia music dance choreography by the very first crew to ever sign up for the Krampus parade, the bewitching brujas with an appearance by Krampus and Kiko, the dancing devil. And we built a portal and Krampus came out of the portal and it told the story of how the devil in the dance hall in 1974 visit the El Camaroncito dance hall. And we did the World Building to establish that they were cousins. And we had narrators, myself and then also the voice of Kiko spoken in Spanish and in the voice of Krampus, spoken in German by a friend of mine that visited San Antonio just for that occasion. Anyway, it was a blast. It was a hit.

Bob Crittenden [00:24:03]:
We had a good time.

Bob Rivard [00:24:04]:
Was there any dancing with Kiko if there were young women there willing to take the risk?

Bob Crittenden [00:24:09]:
Absolutely. So the choreography of bewitching brujas is usually a group dance, but in this case Kiko would seduce, I guess you would call it seduce, but it was, you know, PG 1313. And he would seduce individuals from the bewitching brujas and dance with each of them until he was interrupted by a phone call from Krampus. And that's when Krampus told him, hey, I'm. I'm stuck. I had such a good time at the Prey, but I'm stuck here in Bavaria. I need to get through. And.

Bob Crittenden [00:24:44]:
And Kiko said, well, I got a portal. Just I'll get you through the portal. So we called on the help of the crowd to pull Krampus through the portal and the rest is history.

Bob Rivard [00:24:55]:
It's amazing what you coding programmers can pull off in this virtual world that's so dominated by AI. We're running out of time. But I wanted to ask you, I watched a number of videos of Krampus online that have taken place in Bavaria or in various areas of the Tyrell. What is the role of bells? Because you didn't mention bells. And I think for people getting dressed up, people getting dressed up may want to hear that they can wear their bells.

Bob Crittenden [00:25:25]:
Absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up. So they say that for a good Krampus pass, you should hear them before you see them. And in these videos you will can't help but notice these huge oversized bells or glocken or Krampus. Glocken just means Krampus bells. And in fact, Bob, I've imported what I think are the only Austrian forged original Krampus glocken in San Antonio. So each glukin is about as big as a globe and there's two of them on this belt. And so one of the Krampus that will be in the, in the.

Bob Crittenden [00:26:11]:
The Valkyries pass will be wearing this. These bells. And if you've been to any of our Krampus events or Kiko events this year, you've probably seen or heard the bells. They're loud, they're very loud. In fact, there are some passes. There's a pass in Florida where the the captain has declared a rule that no more than two Krampus can wear these bells at once because they're just so loud. So by all means, if you're coming as a spectator, wear your your Galakin. Also wear illumination.

Bob Crittenden [00:26:45]:
So this is a night parade. So wear your lights, be creative and have fun.

Bob Rivard [00:26:52]:
All right, we will see you Friday, December 5, 7:30 Beethoven Hall Beethoven Manicore Excuse me, excuse me On Parida and Bob Crittenden. Thanks for coming on to Big City Small Town. See you at Krampus.

Bob Crittenden [00:27:05]:
You're welcome, Roosevelt Krampus.

Bob Rivard [00:27:11]:
As we approach this podcast 150th episode later this year, we'll be adding some new sponsors that reflect the robust growth we've enjoyed this year. After welcoming producer and co host Corey Ames to our enterprise, launching our YouTube channel, and our weekly Monday Musings newsletter. If you do not yet subscribe to my free digital commentary, I hope you'll do so now by going to our Big City Small Town website and clicking on newsletters. The local media presence in San Antonio has been steadily shrinking since 2007. Believe me, I've experienced it personally versus the executive editor at the San Antonio express news from 1997 to 2011 and then as we launched the Rivard report in 2000 2012, where I worked until 2022. If your company or organization would like to consider supporting our local journalism and programming as a sponsor, please drop me a line via social media or to my email@robertjrevardmail.com thank you. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Big City Small Town. Please share this episode with friends and colleagues and if you haven't already, sign up for Monday Musings, my weekly newsletter.

Bob Rivard [00:28:20]:
Just go to bigcitysmalltown.com and add your email. Big City Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban Building, the city our children want to call home, and by Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Thanks to Corey Ames of Ensemble, Texas for the production of this show. We will see you next week.