Merry Christmas from the Netherlands

[image from here]

Today is Christmas in the Netherlands. Tonight we're supposed to put our shoes out for Santa, or Sinterklaas as they call him, to come around and put goodies in them. The Dutch Christmas tradition is pretty unique, so i'm going to share it with you.

It starts in November, when Santa arrives in the Netherlands from his home in Spain with his "Zwarte Piet" (Black Pete) (7- 8 black men dressed like medieval attire). Then throughout the month Sinterklaas visits every town or village in the Netherlands (he was living in our castle on Thursday and Friday, no joke). This is made possible by the "hulp-Sinterklazen" (people who help Sinterklaas by dressing up like him)

This website describes the next part better than i could and i enjoy his/ her witty comments:

"Sinterklaas goes on a tour through the village accompanied by several Zwarte Pieten, who throw different types of sweets around and on the ground for children to get tetanus. You can see children squirming about like maggots, trying to get hold of as much candy as their little hands can hold. The smart children, who know how diseases come about, then resort to throwing it back as hard as possible, causing multiple concussions to the Pieten. Wisened by experience, the Pieten now only deposit candy straight into the open hands of the weakest children. "

....

"Sinterklaas, the legendary man, looks like an old wise bloke with long white hair and similar beard. He is dressed like a bishop and has a golden (shepherd) staff in his hand. He also carries a large leather bound book, with gold print, in which it is written which children have been good and which have not. In the "good old days" kids used to be threatened to be whipped when they had been bad, with a bunch of twigs (a "roe"), after which they would be put in a burlap bag to be shipped to Sinterklaas' residence in Madrid, Spain. As parenting grew softer over the years, this valuable tradition was lost, except in some of the Sinterklaas songs. Also, people nowadays pay big money for holidays in Spain, and for whipping too for that matter. The kids are smart enough to know that, so the effectiveness of the punishment has decreased anyway."

On the night before December 5th (or on the 3rd, i'm sort of confused), the children place their shoes out with vegetables in them for santa and their christmas lists. in the morning they are replaced with candy.

"On December 5th Sinterklaas brings the large presents, which are left in large plastic trash-bags (the same ones that will be used to throw away all the broken toys in the coming weeks) on the front porch. Sometimes the parents hire a Sinterklaas from the "Sinterklaascentrale" (an organization providing assistant Sinterklazen) to present the presents. They might even dress up themselves, causing uncomfortable situations when the kids recognize those shoes, wrist watches, rings and glasses mentioned before. "Daddy is a transvestite" is a commonly heard and traumatising remark. The old, wise man utters some very wise words such as "Are there any naughty children here?" and "Have you been a good boy/girl this year?". Upon receiving the respective replies of "noooo!" and "yeees!", Sinterklaas proceeds to explain why that reply is incorrect. Loads of children are traumatised by Sinterklaas every year, especially when they are forced to sit on his lap and sing a Sinterklaas song.
Sinterklaas for grown-ups means a party of giving and receiving gifts, much like on Christmas, but now the presents are called "surprises" (pronounce as "sir-preeze-us"). A surprise is a gift hidden within a product of tinkering, aimed at giving the gift the appearance of something completely different, accompanied by a poem. It serves to embarrass the addressee by reminding him/her of some embarrassing moments in the past year, or to point out a general failure of character in a mocking way. It is the day to get even with anybody for anything, but it is mostly played with family and/or friends. The most cliched surprises are a gift:


in a bucket of shit;
wrapped in five thousand kilometres of sticky tape; or
which is only an empty box."


more info

Pretty interesting i think. i went to the city of Nijmegen (which is about an hour from Well [where i live]) and i saw dutch adults running around in medieval costumes with black face paint that remind me minstrel shows in the late 1800s and early 1900s. the black painted faces may seem very racist to the average american like myself, but the dutch just do things differently and race isn't really an issue here. at least this is what i have been told. either way, its good to keep an open mind about other cultures' traditions.

anyways, the situation is a pretty good deal for me, i get to celebrate christmas twice and i think i'm going to take advantage of the after christmas sales next weekend. mwahaha.

music: sunny day real estate, new bright eyes, death cab for cutie, self, the pixies, beck, belle and sebastian