As the day wanes

Today I am thankful for a warm house, warm soup, and warm tea. Can you tell that it's cold outside? I got quite rained on as I slogged home from French class this afternoon. No umbrella, because it seemed like it might be a nice day when I left the house--but I should know by now not to trust the morning sky in Brussels.

Speaking of French class, we got an assignment to bring a ghost story to class on Thursday, something from our "home culture." She said it could be anything Halloween-related, witches, goblins, etc. Something along the lines of a story we read in class today (for a fourth-grade reading level, isn't that encouraging) about a little boy who discovers tiny witches giving sorcery lessons in the forest. But I'm drawing a blank. Somehow I missed all those charming childhood Halloween stories, I suppose! If anyone has any ideas...

I learned in class today that Belgian children get presents on December 6, which goes a long way towards explaining why all of the shops have been packed recently. It's like Black Friday frenzy in the US: only one month to Christmas! On the night of the 5th, Saint Nicholas comes to leave presents in everyone's shoes. Then, many families also celebrate Santa Claus as a separate thing on December 25th and thus have two gifty celebrations. It's like in Spain, with Christmas and then the arrival of the Three Kings, who also bring presents.

Since the Mister and I have a Catalan-American-Belgian household (Catamelgian, if you will), we should celebrate all of them: presents in our shoes on December 6, presents under the tree and pooped from a log on December 25, and presents left by the Wise Men on January 6. A whole month of presents! Now there's a holiday season worth caroling about.