In the tradition of Charles Dickens, who utilized ghosts to bring some horror to his classic Christmas novella A Christmas Carol, C. M. Smith uses a monster to explore the meaning of Christmas in a modern context. But this is no made up monster. This monster is real: the Krampus of Alpine folklore, a beast of great strength and ferocious temper whose mission is to punish bad children. He is "the anti-Santa Claus," to quote Eric Pichler. In a work even more terrifying than Dickens' classic, Smith recounts his encounter with this legendary beast in a tale that takes the reader back to Smith's early childhood, to a series of events that he, for obvious reasons, has long been unwilling share.