St. Nicholas and his helpers!

We did it again...not sure if you remember, but last year I wrote this post about going to see Santa and his helpers arrive in Brussels via boat!!  And after going last year I couldn't pass up one more chance to get a rare glimpse of Santa and his unusual Spanish helpers ushering in the Christmas spirit to Brussels.

The funny thing is, the only thing that feels Christmas-y about this is Saint Nick himself.  There was music playing, but none of it was Christmas...there were helpers, but they definitely are not the elves you are used to seeing in the story books or on TV...they are grown-ups with their faces painted black wearing black curly wigs (and Autumn was completely petrified of them...she wouldn't let me put her down for fear one of the "black Pete's" as they're called, would swoop her up and take her back to Spain...which coincidentally is what the legend says they do to bad children).  But even if it wasn't the most festive of events we still had a blast hanging out with our friends!  Here are Autumn, Grace, and Brooklyn waiting for Santa to appear (and before the scary helpers went by).

Here comes the boat!!

The helpers bringing in some clementines.  I can't imagine why Autumn was so scared...ha!

And the best part of the day, getting our faces painted!

What a cute lion & butterfly!

Another interesting Belgium tradition that we got to experience.  And even if it was a cold rainy day, I'm still glad we ventured out to enjoy it with our friends.

And keeping with the holiday spirit, we visited the annual American Women's Club Holiday Bizarre last weekend to check out the goodies.  We didn't buy much...a book for Autumn, an ornament, and a beautiful book of Belgian photos from the author of Cheeseweb...a website about Belgium and European travel.  But it also was another chance for Autumn to have her face painted.  She's becoming quite the little face paint model :o)

We are definitely in the holiday spirit now!  Bring on the Christmas markets!!