Fans of South Park are no doubt familiar with Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo, who literally craps on the commercialization of Christmas. As the documentary video below indicates, Mr. Hanky actually, um, flows from Catalonian Christmas traditions said to predate Santa Claus: the Caganer and the Tio de Nadal. The Caganer is a squatting shitter that can take a variety of forms; the Tio de Nadal is a shitting log.

This short-but-tres-informative video is well worth watching not least of all because it transcends the obvious and uneasy jokes about "holy shit" that reflect American scatological taboos; DallasNews Religion reproduces a recent Religious News Service article on the subject.

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