Oh no! YOUTH!
Oh no! YOUTH! tripb/CC BY 2.0

The war between Krampus and teens has flared up once again in the small Austrian city of St. Johann im Pongau, as a group of teens have brutalized one of the performers in the annual Christmas demon parade.

As reported on the Local, during this year’s annual Krampuslauf, one of the demons got attacked by a gang of teens. The parade is an Austrian tradition which sees dozens of locals dress up like the demonic Christmas monster, Krampus, and parade through the streets judging people naughty or nice and threatening to punish them with switches or chains. There is often fire, elaborate costumes, and as with many raucous holiday traditions, a fair amount of heavy drinking.

However, this year, a group of teenagers decided that they liked Santa better and physically assaulted some of the performers in the parade. It doesn’t seem like anyone was seriously injured, although at least one of the teens was placed under arrest.

Surprisingly, this is not the first volley in the war between Krampus’ and their audience. In 2015, a group of teens in Salzburg, Austria was viciously attacked by some of the Krampus performers during their local parade, sending one of the kids to the hospital. Hopefully next year, Krampus and naughty teens can just get along.