Weirdest Christmas Tradition Ever: The Caganer, Which Is French For ‘Guy Pooping In The Nativity’

Christmas is celebrated by groups of people all over the world, so you are bound to see traditions that vary from place to place. However, we may have found the weirdest of them all. Folks, meet the Caganer.

The Caganer is a figure placed within a nativity scene in Catalan culture (parts of France and Spain and other countries that are less important) that is just squatting down and pooping in front of little baby Jesus.

I must say, this is probably the most brilliant idea the holiday season has ever seen. After all the nativity scene, while important to the history of the religions that believe in its events, is nice, it lacks humor, which makes it a total no-go for me. Add poop into the equation and, boom, all of a sudden I can make poop jokes while everyone else talks about how important the scene was and all of that other stuff.

Now, I know what you're asking: "why in the world is there a guy pooping in front of Jesus and everyone else that's there? What a weirdo."

Well, after a thorough Google search, and by through I mean after about a minute of looking around then losing focus, I found a few different speculated reasons as to why the little guy is there.

According to the Caganer's Wikipedia page, it is speculated to symbolize anything from equality to fertilizing the Earth to the notion that God will manifest himself whether we are ready or not, or caught with our pants down, even in the literal sense.

I'll just stick with the original reason that I provided, that poop is hilarious and that our little bowel moving buddy is there to lighten up the mood for us all.

I can just imagine when this thing was originated. I'll bet it was some guy hundreds of years ago who was celebrating his first Christmas at his new wife's parents' house. He felt incredibly awkward, so he decided to try to lighten the mood by sticking a Caganer in the nativity scene. Unfortunately, they were not impressed and killed him, but word about the Caganer spread and it became a big hit.

And the best part!?!? The Catholic church is totally fine with them! Although not everyone feels that they are appropriate, people are free to put the poop in their nativity scenes as they please.

Now, I encourage all of you to put a Caganer in your nativity scenes this holiday season. Hopefully that's the only crap you end up getting for Christmas.