For so many around the world, Christmas is a magical time of year. With family, presents, food and celebrations, it is a day that is cherished and special. However, there are many Yule-tide legends that go unspoken in our homes, that may twist the way you view the most wonderful time of the year.

In Western culture, everyone knows the tale of Santa, but the stories that aren’t told are those of his not-so-nice friends - one of which goes by the name of Krampus, a demon with huge horns whose sole purpose is to find naughty children and send them to Hell. As it goes, Santa doesn’t really want to be bothered with the naughty children so sends out his friend to find them all a few weeks before the big day. Don’t be too worried though, minor offences are simply dealt with being beaten with a bundle of sticks. It’s the really bad ones that need to get nervous – they're the ones who will be thrown in a sack and taken straight to Hell. You need to be on your best behaviour from the moment you are born as that’s when Krampus starts watching you, as evidenced by images of the demon taking away lots of presumably naughty infants away to their dreaded fate.

There are many other legends like the one of Krampus that stem back hundreds of years. Despite this, there are just as scary sides to the holiday that are far more modern. For instance, some beautiful Christmas songs that actually have extremely creepy meanings. An obvious one being the classic holiday duet ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’. A lovely, cheery, romantic song... about date rape. Within which a predator attempts to get his date drunk and won’t let her leave. Festive. Another example of this is ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’. Of course, on the outside this seems like a sweet, innocent song about a naïve child – however, looking more closely at the lyrics, after the 3 minutes of the song has ended you can only assume subsequent divorce proceedings, custody battles and related emotional trauma that takes years to unfold. If you are interested in looking at more of these stories, head on over to the Ranker website where they have at least 10 more scary sides of Christmas tales. Just remember while celebrating the joyous holiday this year that things may not always be as they seem...