Of feasts and celebrations

In Northern Europe there are many feasts and celebrations, kind of like our federal holidays except more opportunities for a day off, a parade or a special kind of food. In the U.S. most federal holidays are an opportunity to buy sheets or mattresses on sale, in Belgium they eat, drink and have parades.
 
Since moving to Europe four and a half years ago, I have learned more about Catholic saints than I ever did in my Catholic catechism classes in the U.S.. Not that people here are particularly religious or attend church services, but saint feast days give them an opportunity to eat, drink and go to parades.
 
I will give you a few of my favorite feast days in November.

All Saints (Nov 1) and all Souls (Nov 2) Days were the first two holidays I encountered when I moved to Belgium. Of course I knew these holy days from my Catholic upbringing but here All Saints Day is a national holiday with all businesses closed. It is comparable to our Memorial Day without the white sales and shopping. Every grave is beautifully decorated with real flowers, as it seems that fake flowers are not socially acceptable.

My other memory of All Saints Day was when I was in Croatia about 10 years ago. We were driving down the road one night in a rural area and when we passed by a small cemetery it appeared that every grave was illuminated by red votive candles. It was a beautiful scene and a touching tribute to the family members buried there. Earlier that same day, I saw an older woman riding her bike to the cemetery and the front basket was overflowing with flowers that she would use to decorate the graves.

In Belgium, many families and church members spend the day visiting the cemeteries. I noticed that outside the cemeteries vendors even sell fresh flowers for people who could not get to the store before the holiday.

The next saint that I came across was St. Hubert, the patron saint of Belgium and hunters. His feast day is November 3 and on that particular day I was exploring Ghent and wandered into a Catholic church. I walked forward to examine the altar and I thought I saw a rack with dead pheasants. Hmmm, dead pheasants instead of votive candles? That’s a new one. I walked closer and sure enough 28 dead pheasants were tied to a rack about 6 ft high to the right of the altar. But even more impressive was the dead boar laying in front of the altar. I included the picture of the pheasants since I am sure you thought I exaggerated!

It was a Saturday and there was a man arranging various items and dead animals around the altar so I asked about the unusual decorations. Well, that night, there was a mass celebrating the feast of St. Hubert with all the local hunting clubs. He invited me to attend the mass and join them for a drink afterwards. I examined the banners located in the front of the church for the various hunting clubs and noticed that one dated back to 1725. I declined the invitation to return but I think of this feast day every November 3rd.
 
Traditionally, St. Hubert’s feast day is the start of stag hunting season. The other irony is that he was a wealthy nobleman who loved to hunt, got religion, stopped hunting and became a bishop. I know, I know, and he is the patron saint of hunters because....let’s just say that life here is full of contradictions.

Continuing with the theme of November saints, November 11 is the feast of St. Martin of Tours who was a Roman soldier who cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm. It turns out the beggar was Christ and the Roman soldier later converted to Christianity and became a monk.

But the fun part of the feast day is the night before. In Northern Europe, particularly Germany, the tradition is that children make lanterns and go door-to-door singing songs and receiving sweets in return. I live in basically a small walled city about 6 blocks by 4 blocks and we celebrate St. Martin’s Eve by processing through the Begijnhof (which is what this area is called). We gather at the church and the University Carillon Master starts to play as adults and children walk through the streets for about 45 minutes. The Germans in the group know the songs and the children sing right along. The adults shuffle behind the children looking forward to the glühwein at the end but, of course, the children are given hot chocolate! Apparently in Germany, the procession is led by a man dressed as a Roman solder on a white horse, which is really dramatic.

The only holiday missing in Belgium in November is Thanksgiving. Though most people in Belgium know of our American Thanksgiving and wish that they had a similar day.

Next, December traditions...

Easter in Europe

Happy spring! The weather has been unseasonably beautiful and dry this month. Many of the older people say it is the warmest spring they can remember. So we are also having unusual weather in Belgium and thankfully, not the storms of the US. The extended daylight of May through August starting at 530 and lasting until 1000pm, more than make up for the grey and rain of winter.

I wanted to update you on one of my most recent trips.

Easter is an important holiday here and most people take a week off to travel either before or after Easter. The children also have a two week break from school. With six weeks of government mandated vacation, families are able to take lengthy breaks over holidays.

My break was shorter but very pleasant. I flew to Vienna on Good Friday and took the train to an area about an hour and a half outside of Vienna. I met a former intern who worked for me on Capitol Hill and is now a Director with Swiss Re in Zurich. His career has certainly flourished more than mine! We spent 3 days with friends of his who have a vineyard in a small village called Wiessenkirchen located on the Danube.

The family lives in a traditional farmhouse which means it is located in the city. It is built like a box with a center courtyard and a large door that leads to the interior. Half is the family residence and the other half is used as a barn and machine storage area. He farms 5 hectares or 2.5 acres of grapes and produces Grüner Veltliner, which some of you may have sampled in the US. The farmhouse was built around 1190 and the great-grandparents of the family moved into the house in 1830. Outside of electricity and indoor plumbing, I am not sure much has changed with the family compound.

Because it was Easter weekend, much of the activity revolved around church services. I arrived early afternoon on Good Friday. The children were walking through the streets swinging a type of wooden clapper saying a quote about the coming of the Savior. In the Catholic Church, no bells ring between Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil, which is the Saturday night before Easter. Needless to say, the children rang the wooden clappers with great relish for those two days. Probably one of the few times they were allowed to make as much noise as they wanted. If any of you have traveled in Europe, you know that the church bells are the time keeper in a community ringing every 15 minutes. So to have two days without church bells was almost eerie and I actually had to use my watch for a change.

​The church of course was on the highest point in the village and walking up the hill was almost a 45 degree angle. It is know as a fortress church. The church was built in 1140 and then about 15-20 feet outside the church was a wall that was probably 15 feet high. So when the bad guys sailed up the Danube to attack the town, the people would go behind the walls of the church for protection. They even had slits in the wall that probably allowed for things like boiling oil and arrows, just like the movies!

t the Easter Vigil on Saturday night, the priest made a few announcements. Despite four years of German, I continue to have the language skills of a 4 year old. I thought I heard him say something about a fundraiser for the bell. So after Mass, I asked my friend Rudi what the priest said. Sure enough, the bell had developed a crack and the parish was having a fundraiser to pay for the repair of the bell. They had to rent a crane to remove the bell, cut through part of the belfry tower and remove the bell. I asked how old the bell was and the reply was it was cast in 1450. My response, “they don’t make bells like they used to!” The bell is even named - the frauenglocken - meaning the mother bell. I would hope that after 561 years the bell would have a name!

And did I mention the wine and food? Despite repeated attempts, I was not able to locate a bad glass of wine. I guess I will just have to go back and try again. It was the perfect vacation, we would hike or bike for several hours and then stop for the appropriate meal and drink.

Despite being one of the best wine growing regions in Austria, it was very un-Napa Valley. The farmer that we stayed with wore overalls and he was the one who was out spraying in the vineyard. I could tell at church that these people were real farmers and not the landholders who paid someone else to do the thankless jobs. There was a local coop that purchased the grapes and bottled the wine and many families, like ours, sold the wine right out of their barn.

On Easter Sunday, we road our bike 30 minutes to a boat stop and took an hour and a half ride on the Danube to the Benedictine Abby of Melk which is 500 years old. We took the bus back to our bikes and then a small car/people ferry across the river. It was a beautiful bike ride along the Danube and it allowed us to see the vineyards on the other side of the river. The hills were about the size of the Shenandoah Mountains and the vineyards were built about a third of the way up the hills. The top 2/3 remained in trees. Some of the terraces for the grapes were said to be a thousand years old.

It was really an amazing place to visit, and for unlimited food and wine, my tour guide services are available.

Celebrations in Europe

I spent a couple of months working in the US this fall and returned to Belgium the end of October. I arrived just in time for a few nice days and the arrival of early snow. While snow in November is the norm in Minnesota or Iowa, this year’s 5 inches of snow is only the 6th time there has been snow in November since 1830 when Belgium became a country. The hope is that this is not a monthly pattern or it will be a long winter. As you can imagine, biking in snow is tough.

Celebrations
 

St. Martin’s Day

One entertaining aspect of Europe is the various feast days, festivals and commemorations celebrating the end of the plague or a war. This year in my community known as the Groot Begijnhof, we had a St. Martin’s Day parade. This is a German tradition that celebrates the Feast Day of St. Martin of Tours. The story is he was a Roman soldier who was stopped by a beggar on a cold winter night and asked for part of his cloak. St. Martin, took out his sword, split the cloak in two and gave the man half. As luck would have it, the beggar was Christ. 

So in Germany, these celebrations are usually led by a man dressed as a Roman soldier riding a horse. All the children make lanterns place candles on the inside and follow St. Martin through the streets singing various St. Martin Day songs. At the end of the parade there is hot chocolate and St. Martin cookies (which look a lot like gingerbread men). So in our little community we walked around our 5 square block area while the carillon in the church played various songs including “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (the organist has a sense of humor). The children carried various lantern made from paper and coffee cans lit by a small votive candle swinging from sticks as we walked up and down the cobblestone streets. I was lame and went for the candle in a jar trick, effective, but not very ascetic. And at the end of the evening, we had our hot chocolate and cookies.

Saint Nicholas Day

This is a very big celebration in Northern Europe. December 6 is the feast of St. Nicholas who was a bishop in Turkey and known as the patron saint of children. Children put their shoes out at night and on the morning of the 6th, they find oranges, chocolate and sometimes a gift from St. Nicholas. If they are bad, they receive a lump of coal.

Our parish community drew names and then each person purchased a small gift for the person and wrote a poem or letter from St. Nicholas to the person. The idea is that the person does not know who gives them the gift. We had a meal the afternoon of the 5th with the gift exchange and reading of poems afterwards. I was amazed at the creativity of the letters and poems. The person who had my name must of looked me up on the internet because the person wrote about things in my life and interests that people here would not know. It was a fun evening and a special tradition. Because gifts are given on the 6th, I think the gift giving at Christmas is greatly reduced.

City Hall at night.

Christmas Season

By the time I returned from Thanksgiving in the US, the Christmas season had kicked off in Leuven and is celebrated differently. I haven’t see a Santa Claus yet, I guess because Saint Nicholas is celebrated the 6th and that is it.

The trees along the streets and pedestrian walkways are decorated with strings of white lights or decorations made up of white lights. Many store windows are tastefully decorated with red balls or ribbon or wrapped gifts but it is certainly not overdone. Thankfully, there is no cheesy Christmas music blaring on the streets or in the stores.

As I have mentioned in earlier letters, the stores here close at 6:00pm and are not open on Sunday’s. The store hours don’t change for Christmas. I have not told my friends here about how American’s camp out in front of stores for 5 hours before they open on a national holiday. They would not understand the concept because on a national holiday in Belgium, the stores are closed. The one concession to the holidays is that because Christmas and New Year are on Saturday this year which are normal shopping days, stores are allowed to open for several Sundays in December.

We also have a Christmas market on two squares that flank the main university library. The market is not as elaborate as those found in Germany, which are a class unto themselves, but the glühwein tastes pretty darn good. Christmas markets don’t seem to be so much about the shopping, though some of that occurs, but are really social gatherings. There are many booths with food and drink and each one as their own crowd, some young and some old, eating, drinking and talking. It seems in the US, people gather at the malls while here, the place to be seen is at the outdoor Christmas market. 

A part of the Christmas festivities is the large creche scene with live sheep situated opposite of city hall covered with hundreds of lights. We also have carousels and other rides for the children. In Brussels there is a ferris wheel with enclosed cabins and a spectacular view of the city.

Christmas in Belgium is a magical season, it seems that there is enough to make it special but not so much that people lose sight of the joy of being with family and friends during the holiday.

All the best to you during this Advent, Hanukkah and Christmas season.