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Childs Christmas in Belgium Christmas is coming in Belgium: slower than in England, with your October BOGOFs on Waitrose stollen, but its coming nonetheless. This weekend, the baby Jesuses arrived in my local supermarket. The baby Jesuses, or possibly Jesi, are sold in blister packs of two. Theyre small, bright pink sugar fondant infants, a green icing loincloth piped over their mid- section to preserve modesty. Here, look. Like the first swallow of summer, the fondant Jesi signify the start of winter for me. Theyre meant to be used to decorate a foetus shaped brioche called a Cognou, but it tastes horrible, so I just leave them around the house, festively gathering dust. I only buy them because I like the matter of fact way they ring up at the till: 2 x pice Jesus: 1,95. Long, long ago when I first moved, when Belgium had a government (sort of) and I had a job (sort of) and Europe had an economy (sort of), the seasonal shocks came thick and fast. First, there was the bewildering notion of two red suited, white bearded seasonal gift givers appearing three weeks apart: St Nicolas on the 6th, then Father Christmas hot on his heels. Or is that wrong? Because, surely theyre the same person? I tried to get some clarification. Its easy said my Belgian friends. St Nicolas wears a bishops hat and hes quite thin, and Father Christmas is fat with a bobble. And Father Christmas has reindeer, and St Nicolas has a mule said another. Not a mule, a white horse.

He gets the boat from Spain, doesnt he? I had read that in the newspaper, complete with pictures of the Saint descending from a high-speed motor launcher somewhere on the Dutch coast. Sometimes its a helicopter. No, he travels by train! Despite the ambient confusion, the weight of evidence soon clarified things in my head: Father Christmas was good cop, Saint Nick, with his birch switches , threats of child abduction and pointy stick, was quite obviously bad cop. And the baddest thing about him was the company he keeps: Im talking about the Pre Fouettard. Ah, the Pre Fouettard. Father Whip in English, or apparently Father Flog in America. For those of you fortunate enough not to have encountered him, Let me just read briefly from Wikipedia: The most popular story about the origin of Le Pre Fouettard is as an innkeeper, who captures three wealthy boys on their way to enroll in a religious boarding school. Along with his wife, they drug the children, slit their throats, cut them into pieces, and stew them in a barrel. St. Nicholas discovers the crime and resurrects the children. After this, Le Pre Fouettard repents and becomes St. Nick's partner. Festive! Tell us, Wikipedia, what does Father Whip look like? The most common depiction of Le Pre Fouettard is of a man with a sinister face dressed in dark robes with scraggly unkempt hair and a long beard. He is armed with either a whip, a large stick, or with bundles of switches. Some incarnations of the character have him wearing a wicker back pack in which children can be placed and carried away (most legends have it, to Spain).

 Well. You can stop right there Wikipedia with this Father Steptoe business, because firstly, the ones here all dress like some sinister species of panto principal boy, all pantaloons and tights, and secondly, because you are being coy about the most, erm, striking feature of the modern Pre Fouettard, which is that HE IS A WHITE PERSON MADE UP TO LOOK BLACK. Leering out at you from adverts, immortalised in chocolate or marzipan, quite possibly sitting next to you on the tram: the Pre Fouettard is confirmation that Belgium is where political correctness comes to curl up and die of shame. I did once raise the thorny issue with a Belgian colleague. So .. about the Pre Fouettard. Isnt it all a bit weird? The flogging, the putting children in a sack and taking them to Spain, the blackface? Its a LOVELY tradition she maintained stoutly. Hes just sooty, because hes been down the chimney. But I thought historically it was pretty well established that he was Saint Nicolass Moorish slave? She fixed me with an icy stare. Its. A nice. Tradition. For. Children. Hes. Sooty. My first office St Nicolas tea party was, I think, the point of no return. I was at the time working for a gigantic multinational firm of lawyers and the invite to the childrens St Nicolas party came as a pleasant, if out of character, surprise. The office had really pushed the boat out for the occasion. The entrance hall was filled with balloons, some kind of jolly folk music was playing and basket of speculoos biscuits had replaced the branded mints at reception. A photographer took a picture of my children, somewhere between apprehensive and excited and we were waved through to the party.

 The office library was unrecogniseable. The central table had been cleared of its usual galley of interns, rattling their chains as they studied the 29 volumes of the revised tax code and replaced with indescribable bounty: bowls of M&Ms, miniature clairs, waffles in all their many splendours, and something that looked like sheep droppings, but I presume werent . My children ran off to investigate, whilst I headed to the returns desk, where the copies of Common Market Law Review had made way for a selection of traditional Belgian teatime beverages: coffee, Lipton Yellow label tea, and 8000 bottles of Jupiler beer. I was just toying with introducing a Lipton Yellow tea bag to a plastic beaker of lukewarm water, when my eldest son came up, brandishing something small and pastel coloured. Ive found a massive bowl of these, he said gesturing enthusiastically towards an area where I could sometimes be found hiding behind a revolving display of the Gazette of European Intellectual Property Law on bad days. What is it? I dont know, lets have a look. I peered closer. Oh. Well. It appears to be a marshmallow Virgin Mary. I wonder what the etiquette about eating..? Too late, my son had popped the blessed Virgin in his mouth. Tastes ok. After a couple more handfuls of the mother of the church, we wandered back out into the atrium, where a shadow puppeteer was entertaining the assembled families. It was later explained to me that because of the language sensitivities in Belgium, all entertainment had to be silent, but at the time, it seemed indescribably eery.

We sat at the front and watched as the shadow puppeteer, a ill-shaven man in a sateen shirt smelling strongly of nicotine and despair, conjured up a sequence of shapes in front of a rudimentary screen. Oooh, look! I pointed out brightly to my youngest. Thats an owl! And a stork! And look, thats a horse, galloping, and thats a monkey. And, er, thats a lady dancing. Oh. And some people erm having a cuddle. And thats .. oh. Hitler. Whos Hitler? asked the youngest, mouth still full of Virgins. Thankfully at this point the puppeteer was ushered off stage and the music changed. A palpable sense of anticipation shivered through the hall. A small child started crying and suddenly, there was a commotion in the gallery overlooking the atrium, up near the accounts department. St Nicolas! somebody shouted, as on the ground floor, the wailing redoubled. Sure enough, there, walking slowly along the upper corridor, was I was fairly sure, one of the more elderly partners from the real estate department dressed as the Bishop of Myra: mitre, robes and dangerous looking pointy stick. He waved one white gloved hand graciously at us, like the Queen. He was accompanied by a bevy of Pre Fouettards, throwing chocolate coins from the mezzanine with every appearance of intent to wound. The saint descended to the ground floor, silently, mitre wobbling just a little. As he took his seat on a crepe paper covered dais, I would not say the atmosphere in the room was one of happy anticipation. Noooooo wept a girl of about 6 in her best velvet party frock, patent shod heels dragging aginst the parquet as her parents led her towards a beckoning Pre Fouettard ,the whites of his eyes gleaming against a face full of black paint,

gloved hand proffering a basket full of candy. I dont want him to put me in his sack! The event climaxed with a crocodile of children being corralled, most reluctantly, to sit on Saint Nicolass knee for a photograph, while the Fathers Whip looked in their enormous book of child behaviour to check whether they deserved a present. Whilst, of course, no one actually got the birch twig of delinquency, the tension was palpable. My own children submitted to the ritual, I think mainly from fear of what the alternative might be and then, clutching their gifts, we made our escape. We drove home, largely in silence. As we neared the house, my younger son spoke, finally. Mum, do those men have to come to our house? A week later I received a souvenir photo. My children are sitting on St Nicolass knee, while a grinning Pere Fouettard hovers in the background, like the product of a diseased imagination. Saint Nicolas is holding both white gloved hands in the air, palms facing the camera in a gesture that looks like it was stipulated by child protection experts. My eldest son has made a brave attempt at a smile, but his eyes betray confusion, and not a little alarm. The youngest is staring with intense suspicion at one of the saints white gloves. I had it framed, instantly. So this Christmas, spare a thought for the children of Belgium. At best, they make wake to sheep droppings and marshmallow saints placed in their shoes by a child dismemberer. At worst .. well. Im sure Spains very nice at this time of year.