December 2018 - Saint Nicholas vs Christmas & parties

Let's be honest, when we think about December, we think about Christmas. And here in the States, they start thinking about that from the moment Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday of November) has passed. From then on, they start decorating their houses and they even put their Christmas tree already.

That is of course unheard of in Belgium!! Because there we have the unspoken rule, that no Christmas tree is put before Saint Nicholas ('Sinterklaas' or just short 'de Sint' in Dutch/Flemish) has visited on the 6th of December 😏. For my non-European friends ... Saint Nicholas is mainly celebrated in The Netherlands and in Belgium. He's a legendary figure based on the patron saint for children. He was a Catholic bishop of Myra (a place in present Turkey) who was known for his generosity and love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships. After his death (on the 6th of December in the year 342), he was declared a saint. Although he's from Eastern Europe, as from the 13th century he was also celebrated in Western Europe.
The origin of the present child feast, because that's what it is today, in The Netherlands and Belgium, lays in the 19th century. 'De Sint' arrives on a steamboat from Spain (don't ask me why suddenly he comes from Spain with a boat, when apparently he's from Turkey 🙄) with his white horse and a few helpers (called 'Zwarte Piet' in Dutch, or 'Black Pete' in English). In recent years this 'Black Pete' character has become a subject of controversy as it would be racist ... but we're not going to elaborate on that though!

Anyway, in Belgium kids put their shoe with some goodies for 'de Sint' and his horse & helpers in the evening of the 5th of December. During the night, 'De Sint' & his helpers then comes through the chimney (and don't worry, he'll find another way in for people without a chimney 😆) with presents for the kids.

In the Netherlands 'De Sint' comes on the 5th in the evening. Kids will sing songs, and then suddenly there's a knock on the door. Sometimes 'De Sint' will come in with the presents, or sometimes he will leave the presents on the doorstep ... depends on the motivation of your available neighbours/friends/family I guess 😬.

Here in the States they don't have 'De Sint', but they do have Santa Claus at Christmas, and Santa Claus is deduced from our 'Sint'! Apparently during the reformation in the 16th and 17th century, the protestants didn't allow any Catholic celebrations, so no more 'Sint'. Instead people would give presents to their children at Christmas. At some point in the 17th century, a personification of this Christmas ritual arised in England: Father Christmas. He looked a lot like our 'Sint', but he came from the North Pole instead of Spain and was not a Catholic Saint.

With the migration of the Dutch and English colonists in the 17th and 18th century to the States, these two traditions came together ... a 'Saint Nicholas' who comes around Christmas ... in 1773 there's been a first report of 'Santa Claus'.

But so, they are related, which explains why they do look alike.

Although our kids don't believe in 'De Sint' any more of course, they do love the tradition of putting their shoe ... and especially getting a present the next morning. 😆

Here our boys put their ski boot instead of their shoe ... hoping that more fits in there than in a normal shoe?

From then on, all my usual activities with the Spouses clubs that month, we're Christmas-themed.

My monthly activity for the Energy Club, this time a 5K Jingle Bells Run:

The monthly social with the American spouses:

If you spot the Mrs. Claus, that would be me 😆

The result of walking around like Mrs. Claus all night!

Our monthly coffee get-together with the international spouses:

The monthly book-club meeting with the American spouses:

Of course we also had a Christmas party with family ... that is, with our substitute Belgian family here in Utah. Traditionally, we always take a group picture during that party , which we use for the New Years' drink that we always organise in January:

And besides all this Christmas 'fun', there's also New Years Eve ánd my birthday which were celebrated to a great extent 🤪 this year!

The international community decided to throw me a surprise party for my birthday, the day before prior to my birthday trip to Idaho (which ended up starting a bit later than anticipated due to the 'extent' of the party 🥴). It sure was a memorable night!

And we ended December in the same mode.

To compensate for all these parties, we had to relax a bit too of course ... I mean, as I experienced after my birthday party 😏, we're not 16 anymore.

Our boys spent their vacation in Belgium, so Geert and I took this opportunity to have some quality time together in Idaho.

We stayed 3 nights in Sun Valley (including Christmas Eve), where we skied, enjoyed the open bar in the ski resort (which has become a special thing for us as they don't have that here in Utah thanks to their ridiculous alcohol laws 🙄), relaxed in the jacuzzi, explored the Sun valley night life, or did just nothing at all! Just lovely!!😊

The open bar 😍, the yellow spot at the bar is Geert

Ready to face the cold to go to the jacuzzi ... in style 😂

'The night life' 😆 (better than in Utah of course, but not even close to our night life in Belgium)

We stayed in an AirBnB (a formula that I can really recommend to everybody!) with a fully equipped kitchen. Which is great, because that way we didn't have to go out for dinner on Christmas Eve. We took everything with us to do Raclette (we even had the little pickled onions with us from Belgium!) ... except the Raclette grill 🙄. So typical for us! Although it's not as known here as back in Europe ánd we were in a little town without a Target 😨 (an extremely popular store where they sell EVERYTHING ... I'm convinced that having a Target close by is one of the criteria many Americans use when choosing their place to live 😆), we díd find a Raclette grill in a shop in Sun Valley. I guess we were lucky we were in a ski town, as Raclette is a typical Alpine (Swiss and French) dish!

Back home, we did some more skiing @ our resort (without the open bar 😑), and we went snow shoeing for the first time when we hiked up to Lake Blanche in Big Cottonwood canyon.

In October 2016, we already hiked up there to enjoy the unbelievable fall foliage Utah has to offer (October 2016), and found it to be one of the most beautiful hikes in the area. It's a steep hike of 12,4 km which was already strenuous during the fall, so we knew it would be even harder with snow conditions ... and it was.

As the snow was packed most of the hike, we didn't need snow shoes on the way to the top, however crampons were a must! Only at the top, we strapped on the snowshoes to be able to get to a nice picnic place. We saw some people trying to get there without snow shoes, and they just sank in the snow all the way to their waist.

We didn't stay long at the top, as it was just too cold! Apparently my cheeks and lips turned blue and my fingers and toes just hurt so much! For the first hour going down, I had no feeling in them anymore.

I've added some picture from back in October 2016 which were taken at the same place to give you an idea how the view and the hike changes with the season.