Old Year's Evening

In Belgium the 31 December is known as Old Year's Evening as opposed to New Year's Eve.  As I write this I am braced for the tide of children and accompanying adults who will begin to call on our house to sing.  A tradition here is to go out and sing on Old Year's Evening and be rewarded with sweets, it is a bit like Trick or Treat but without the Halloween costumes.

I don't know whether this is a local thing or a national thing but I am glad it doesn't happen on New Years Day otherwise the reception they get would be less than pleasant.

Anyway the kids are meant to sing a song, apparently the same one and I wish I knew what it meant.  The adults accompanying them do so at a safe distance, you have to feel for them having to get up even earlier than their victims to prepare the kids for their frosty outing.  One year I had forgotten they were coming and therefore had no sweets ready, we really scraped the barrel that year, they got all of the rejected sweets from Christmas.  This year we have bought sweets especially for the occasion, they are candy necklaces, the ones where you can bite halfway through a candy loop and then fire the other half across the room using the elasticated necklace.  It can be quite effective at close range!

They have until 12.00 then all bets are off, so far we have not had anyone and it is 08.42.  I wonder if being midweek and a working day it has had an impact on the numbers of parents able to escort the kids?

It is a bit odd but I feel I cannot go to the toilet until 12.00!  I mean it is not like waiting for a delivery or a tradesman to turn up, I think I should be able to afford missing one or two renditions of the song for the sake of comfort.  Sods law as soon as I get to the bog the door bell will go.  I was thinking of answering the door in my underpants but then I don't want to scare the neighbours.

The cat is peacefully laid next to me on his special fur rug, he is even snoring.  He was harassing me earlier, well seeking attention.

Back in the UK we never did this singing malarkey as a child, we did work.  We used to go around clearing snow from paths and getting rewarded for it, sometimes well other times not so well.  Child labour, you can't beat it.