Six in Switzerland: Schmutzli is coming to town

Who is that with Santa? Well, that's not exactly Santa. That is St. Nicholas. He's in town until December 6th. On the night of the 5th he leaves a little bag of treats in the shoes of all the good children. The bag usually holds a mandarin orange, nuts, dried fruit, and chocolate. After that he leaves town. Baby Jesus will take care of bringing gifts on Christmas Eve. With St Nicholas (who is called Samichlaus here) is Schmutzli. He is a holdover from old pagan winter festivals. Traditionally he is a dark bad guy who beats the bad children with switches and stuffs the really bad children into his bag. Why St Nicholas thought Schmutzli would make a good companion on his big night is unclear.

Nowadays Schmutzli has undergone a makeover. He is much more PC. He has a beard, but does not make-up his face anymore, thank goodness. And he doesn't abuse children. In fact, at the Samichlaus parade tonight he was downright helpful, passing out gingerbread to all the children. The floats gave us a glipse of his new hobbies - cards and playing in the Schmutzli jazz quartet.

A quiet evening in with Samichlaus. Jazzy Schmutzlis.

We got to the parade early and spent some time listening to the singing Christmas Tree. Then we went searching for a place to change L's diaper. Because it is Sunday nothing was open. I thought one of the department stores or the huge grocery stores might be open, but they weren't. Finally we found a Japanese take out restaurant. So the kids and E ate sushi and edamame (the cost of admission to their bathroom) while I scoped a parade spot. We were very lucky to find a great spot (with a Jersey barrier behind us to limit crowding) and it stopped raining right before the parade started.

The parade was led by the Jemoli department store's Santa trolley. During the season little kids can ride the trolley and hear Christmas stories in Swiss German. After that, though, it was all Samichlaus and Schmutzli. Sometimes they were on small floats. The floats were kind of like flat carts, and most of them were pulled by children between ages five and twelve.

Child labor.

Here are Samichlaus and Schmutzli, heading our way! And the littles each got some gingerbread. L was thrilled. T was not thrilled. He was hoping to be pelted with candy.

After the parade we enjoyed the Christmas lights as we walked to the station. We missed our train by a minute or two, so we browsed the market. R took some pictures, and E got himself some churros.