Sinterklaas!!
Sunday, December 4th 2005.This year, I feared missing out on my all-time childhood favourite holiday. On Dec 6th, Sinterklaas brings gifts and treats to all good children in Belgium (bad children get nothing but a whipping from his Morish helper, Zwarte Piet).
Anyway, today I had Marc and his wife Monika; and Brian and Lisa over for dinner (for pumpkin ravioli, more about that in a later post). Marc and Monika were kind enough to make sure that I don’t have to miss out this year, bringing me an excellent basket of treats as featured on the picture here. Lots of Belgian chocolate, speculaas and mandarijntjes (tangerines). All the typical stuff that we would get as a kid. And to top that, a sixpack of Leffe! (Virginia is the closest place where this is available to me)
I’m psyched! Thanks guys!
I forgot about Zwarte Piet. I wasn’t sure if that extended to Belgium or was mainly a Dutch thing. Either way, it’s one of the weirdest, most racist holiday traditions I remember hearing about. Santa’s black Moorish helper who stuffs the bad children into Santa’s bag and takes them to Spain. That’s the myth, right?
Still, it’s nice to get Christmas care packages (:
Hehe, yes, racist indeed, but I doubt you realize that being a kid. Back then, I was mainly concerned about being a good boy instead of weither Sinterklaas was paying social security fees for his Zwarte Piet’s. I was more concerned about not ending up in Zwarte Piet’s bag.. Sinterklaas’ bag was pretty much filled up with toys and goodies, so you wouldn’t end up in there