SamiClaus Day at School
http://s256.photobucket.com/albums/hh164/stripedstockings/SamiClaus%20Day/
Since I do not want to explain what Saamiclaus is and everything, I will steal a bit of text from www.swissworld.net:
St Nicholas (Nicholas of Myra, Patron Saint of children) is popularly called Samichlaus in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. He appears not on Christmas Eve or Day, but on December 6, when children awake to find the shoe or boot they put out the night before filled with mandarin oranges, nuts and cookies.
St Nicholas is accompanied by a character called Schmutzli on his visits to children, in particular in the central cantons. In contrast to the Patron Saint, Schmutzli usually is a rather dark and gloomy figure who carries a cane ("Rute") as well as the jute sack filled with presents.
Female characters take on a similar role in other parts of the country, such as Befana in the Italian-speaking southern canton of Ticino and Chauche-vieille in French-speaking Western Switzerland. In Ticino, children hang up stockings on night of January 5-6 (the word Befana is derived from Epiphany): "good" children receive sweets, while tradition has it that "bad" children find a lump of coal, or sugar lumps resembling coal, in their stockings.
And allow me to state that the cane is for spanking naughty Children.
So I arrive in front of the school on Friday to see all the Sixth years (upperclassmen) wearing black, with their faces painted and carrying large tree branches. AT this point my reaction is: Oh crap. So I walk up and very soon my face is smeared with black paint and I am hit with a stick. But, at the same time, it is very fun. This sort of thing goes on for the rest of the day.
Later, though, my class has to sing a song to please the upperclassmen and not get more nuts and madarins thrown at us. This song was Whams Last Christmas. And now that song is stuck in my head FOREVER. But, yeah, the upperclassment liked ours so it was not too bad. Just one madarin was thrown at us. For lack of energy or something. :)
But yeah, it was really fun and amazing and yeah. I love it.