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Lauren Vogelbaum here.

As crappy holiday traditions go, Catalonia may have the rest of the world beat.

That's because this northeastern

outpost of Spain has some decidedly bathroom-laden Christmas customs that leave many

unsuspecting visitors scratching their heads, laughing, or both. Without further ado,

we present you El Cagané, a statue of a person pooping, placed off in a corner of the

traditional nativity scene. This isn't some recent cultural development that signals the

downfall of modern society. Rather, it's a tradition that dates back at least two centuries.

In Catalan, a romance language from the region of Catalonia, Spain,

the word Cagané translates roughly to crapper, though some sources use rougher language.

The most popular Caginay figure depicts a male peasant in a red hat, a crouched with his buttocks exposed,

and an unmistakable little brown pile at his feet.

At Christmas time, the Kaganay is sneakily hidden somewhere within a nativity scene.

Children make a game of trying to spot the figurine as he crouches in the shadows.

The Kaganay is never at the front of the scene,

because that would be disrespectful. No one really knows what gave rise to this long-lived tradition.

The nativity scene as we know it was developed through a series of early Christian stories,

including one called the Infancy Gospel of Matthew from around

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