Read the card. Dress for it. Arrive on time, because the doors close when the hosts say so.
Throwing your own? Everything you need is below this card.
The night before St. Nicholas Day belongs to Krampus. Here is the whole evening: the running order, who does what, the drinks, the game, and the voice that runs it. Free, and yours to use.
Each guest who opens the link sees this card. Send it by text, email, or anywhere else.
Done for you · $24.95
The host's kit. Print it and pour.
The invitations, the menu, the room and the card game, ready to print. One PDF, 22 pages.
See what's in the kit →
Three hours, give or take. The times follow your doors time above. They are a suggestion; the band doesn't wear a watch.
Candles lit, overhead lights off. Batch the stirred drinks and put them in the fridge. Chill the glasses. Lay the card game on the table where people will gather, not where they'll eat.
The Cloven Hoof Club, Dark Christmas Jazz. Low enough to talk over. It should already be playing when the first guest walks in.
The door is where the evening is decided. Take the coat, hand over the first drink, and greet every guest like the house has been expecting them.
Once most of the room is in, you give the toast. One line. There is a good one below.
The Moderator deals every player a secret card. Two are the Hosts. Everyone else wants to see the morning. Open the narrated night on a phone, set it next to a speaker, and let the voice call the first night. A game runs roughly half an hour, depending on how much your table likes to argue.
Shaken to order, which is why they come now and not at the door. This is when the second game starts, and the losers of the first want a rematch.
One more game, or one more song. The band plays until the last guest leaves. You decide who that is.
A party runs itself when nobody is doing two things at once. Ask people a few days ahead. They'll say yes; people like having a job.
You welcome, you toast, you notice who is standing alone. You do not tend bar and you do not run the game.
One guest per game sits out and watches the night. They know the cards, nod to the Pierced Angel if a guest is a Host and shake if not, and announce who is missing. Rotate the job each game.
The stirred drinks are batched before anyone arrives. The bartender pours, garnishes, and shakes the one drink that has to be shaken.
At The Cloven Hoof, that's Frau Perchta's job. She takes your coat, and your soul. At yours, it's whoever likes meeting people at the door.
The Cloven Hoof Club, on a speaker. During the game, the narrated night plays the band under the voice.
Krampusnacht is a hidden-role card game for grown-ups. By night the Hosts collect a guest; by day the room votes on who to throw out.
Black tie. Horns are your call: set a basket of them by the door, or skip them. Only some are real either way.
Keep it short. Here's the one Lowkey would give:
"To the hosts. Whoever they turn out to be."
One spot with a candle and a dark wall. Everyone gets their photo on the way in, before the game changes who they're standing next to.
Open it on a phone, set the phone by a speaker, and press begin. The house voice calls every role, times every choice, and runs the clock to the vote, with The Cloven Hoof Club playing underneath. Choose Jørgen or Åse. Your Moderator doesn’t need to learn the script.
Good evening, and welcome to The Cloven Hoof.
Enough to hold your own at the party. Where the story is disputed, we say so.
Krampusnacht is the night of December 5, the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6. In Alpine tradition, St. Nicholas rewards the well-behaved children, and Krampus punishes the badly behaved ones with birch rods.
Source: Wikipedia, "Krampus"
Krampus is usually shown with horns and fur, carrying chains, bells of various sizes, a bundle of birch branches, and a sack or basket on his back for taking the worst children away. The name is often traced to the German Krampen, "claw."
Sources: Wikipedia, Smithsonian
In a Krampuslauf, or "Krampus run," people dressed as Krampus parade through town and scare the crowd. The tradition has been growing again since the late twentieth century, and North American Krampus events are growing with it.
Source: Wikipedia
Europeans have exchanged Krampus greeting cards, Krampuskarten, since the nineteenth century, usually with a humorous rhyme. Many of the old cards are now in the public domain.
Sources: Wikipedia, The Public Domain Review
In 1930s Austria, the Dollfuss regime prohibited the Krampus tradition, and in the 1950s the Austrian government handed out pamphlets titled "Krampus Is an Evil Man." Neither stuck.
Source: Wikipedia
The co-hostess of our party comes from the same mountains. Perchta roams during the Rauhnächte, the twelve nights between Christmas and Epiphany, in two forms: a beautiful woman in white, or a crone. In parts of Austria and Bavaria, processions of "beautiful" and "ugly" Perchten still walk those nights.
Source: Atlas Obscura
Krampuskarten went out every December: a devil, a child who had it coming, and a greeting. These ten are old enough to belong to everyone.
All ten: unknown artists, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. More in The Public Domain Review's “Greetings from Krampus.”
You will read that Krampus is a pagan god thousands of years old. Some writers say so. Historians generally consider it unlikely, because he doesn't appear in the record until the sixteenth century. Tell it at the party anyway, and let the room decide.
Everything on this page, designed and ready to print at home, with the card game included. The free guide tells you how. The kit hands you the finished pieces.
See what's in the kit$24.95. One PDF, 22 pages. Print what you need.
The cocktail menu, the sign for the door, and the guests: who's who in the game and how to deal it. Print them tonight, at 100%.
The rest of the kit, with the card game: the host's kit.
December 5, the night before St. Nicholas Day. In 2026 it falls on a Saturday. Any night in early December works just as well.
Not at this party. Krampusnacht at The Cloven Hoof is naughty and witty, not gory. Think black tie and candlelight, not a haunted house.
The running order, the menu and the jobs work for any evening. The game is the centerpiece, though, and the narrated night is built for it.
The game plays 6 to 10 players and a Moderator. Invite enough to fill one table, with a few more to take turns moderating and to watch. The invitation link can go to as many people as you like.
A free page that runs the game out loud: it calls each role, times each choice, counts down to the vote, and plays The Cloven Hoof Club underneath. You pick the voice: Jørgen or Åse.
Krampusnacht, a hidden-role card game for grown-ups, and the band that plays under it.
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