Sint Niklaas and Zwarte Piet

I know.

I have alot of catching up to do.

I think of things I want to put on the blog all the time but somehow posting on the blog is the one thing that never gets crossed off of my to-do list.

I'll start where I left off:

December 6th is Sint Niklaas Day and some of Andy's friends arranged a gathering in the pub across the street for their kids, and friends' kids. Andy agreed to play Zwarte Piet (one of them, there are usually six to eight, but there were only two travelling with Sint Niklaas to Kortrijk this year).

Once I got over the initial shock of people (my boyfriend) actually wearing blackface in public, it was pretty fun. (OK, I didn't really get over it but everyone seemed baffled and/or bored by my friendly but strenuous explanations of why it was not OK to wear blackface, so I finally just shutup and went along.)

There were 15 or 20 kids and they had basically the same reaction that kids do to any costumed person - some were thrilled, some were terrified. Lots of candy was handed out and lots of photos were taken with SinterKlaas (which is Sint Niklaas' other name - the man that comes at Christmas here looks exactly like our Santa Claus but he is called the Kerstman - translated = Christmas Man - and he doesn't bring anything for the kids).

The transformation:

Don't forget the red lipstick!

And the aftermath. After lots of scrubbing. Nice eyeliner: