Sinterklaas is Coming to Town

Christmas is here!  Christmas is here!

But before I talk about Christmas lets go back to Thanksgiving.  Yum!

We had two Thanksgivings and it was wonderful.  Real Thanksgiving was a friend's house.  It was homey and fun and the food was so yummy.  There was a good mix of Americans and Germans and the kids played together so well.

Because I am a big fan of Thanksgiving lasting a week I made second Thanksgiving on Saturday.  We invited our American neighbors, Swedish neighbors, and few stragglers who were alone while the family went back to the mothership.  

Once again, amazing food, amazing company and the beginning of the holidays.

Europe is the blueprint of  Christmas as we know it.  It is so homey and delightful and BIZARRE.

I started to notice that the Belgians have a different Santa myth when Stella came home with a coloring page of Santa riding on a white horse.  She gave it to me and I laughed, we all know that Santa rides a sleigh with reindeer not a white horse.

Except that he does ride a white horse in Belgium.  Oh and he comes in on a boat which is where my story begins.

I took the kids to the river downtown to welcome jolly old Sinterklaas from his journey ON A BOAT.  That's right, not only does this guys not have reindeer but he comes to town on a boat.  Oh and he doesn't have elves either.  Instead he has... well... just look:

The uncomfortable image of Sinterklaas's helper Zwarte Piet

That's right, Santa has a helper.  His name is Zwarte Piet, which means Black Pete.  Which means, uh yeah, they have people dressed in black face here and I sort of couldn't believe it.

This was one of Sinterklaas's helper's at the Brussels Sinersklaas Welkom.  She was about 13 and loved playing the part.  What you don't see in this picture is my jaw that has dropped.  

Sinterklaas's boat and band.

 Most of the kids dressed up were about junior high age kids.  All of them were in black face except for the ones who were of African descent.  This made the whole experience even more disturbing.  Everyone was loving it and no one seemed to be even a little disturbed that they were putting people in black face.

In American culture, "black face" is seen as incredibly rude and racist because of the practice's history in vaudeville entertainment where white performers used it to poke fun of African-American stereotypes. I'm guessing the history isn't quite the same here -- but it was quite shocking to see.

The kids, however were clueless and had no idea that anything was weird.

The story of Zwarte Piet or black Pete is that he was a slave that Santa bought and then freed.  Piet was so grateful he committed his life to helping Santa.  Another version of the story is that he ran away and found Santa who was kind to him.  In the past they characterized him as either cruel (he will kidnap naughty children and take them to Spain which is where Santa goes after Christmas, can I be naughty and go to Spain to get out of Belgian winter?) They also characterized him as a fool.  Fortunately both of those characterizations have been shed, but it still feels wrong.  The other story is that he is just black from all the soot from the chimneys.  None of these back stories make me feel better.  And apparently there are a few who feel the same way as me, although watch out or you will be on the ostracized list of your Dutch friends.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the feast of Santa Claus.  The kids will put shoes out and I will put nuts and fruits that will be ignored for more delicious Belgian chocolate and a few small presents out.  It isn't our tradition but we are in Belgium and if that means an extra day of Christmas for these kids, I am going to give it to them.  We can adopt this day, but when we do Santa will be riding on a white horse without any controversial helpers.