The Krampus was tired.
He’d been doing his job for a long time. He didn’t mind that. Krampus had no problems with being the bad guy, and someone had to be the stick, so to speak, to Saint Nicholas’s carrot. But you can only play the monster for so long before you become one in truth.
One year Krampus hung up his birch rod and stayed home. Nicholas complained about it. He said that the children would run wild without him.
But the holiday passed as it always had.
Krampus breathed a sigh of relief, finally able to enjoy Christmas.

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