Everyone has different Christmas traditions: Some of us decorate trees, some of us drink egg-nog, some of us eat fruitcake and some of us cover ourselves in feces, threaten to murder our children and foster racism in their hearts.

5 The Caganer

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The Nativity scene is a Christmas tradition all around the world. In Catalonia though, they do it just a little bit differently. For one thing, the model encompasses the whole town of Bethlehem, not just the manger, so there are a ton of characters you have to buy to get the full set. Hey, if it's good enough for Star Wars, why not Jesus? But in addition to the all-stars -- Mary, Joseph, that bitchin' camel -- they add in something called a "Caganer," which roughly translates as "shitter." And the name is accurate: He's the one guy in Bethlehem who had the misfortune to be moving his bowels during the birth of Jesus, and is now immortalized that way for all time.



You had some bad goat on the day Christ was born. This is your legacy.

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Because their nativity scenes are so much larger, finding the Caganer is a popular game in Catalonia. Kind of like a biblical-themed, three dimensional, fecalphiliac Where's Waldo -- which makes no difference to us (we've always played that game like that anyway). Although traditionally, the Caganer is a peasant in a red hat, nowadays you can buy Caganers that resemble almost anything you can think of. There are nuns, popes, George W. Bush, Santa even Barack Obama:



We won't bother with a caption, we're sure half the comments section will be Tea Partiers filling in those blanks.

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And in case you're thinking this is just some niche tradition started by a couple of whatever the Catalonian equivalent of frat boys are, think again: In 2005, Barcelona's city council tried to leave the Caganer out of the city's nativity scene, and all hell broke loose. A massive "Save the Caganer" campaign was started, a media blitzkrieg ensued and eventually the government caved to the overwhelming demand for a man shitting next to Jesus.