"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion" ... Democritus of Abdera
Sinterklaas Tradition
I am making amends for relating Sinterklaas to Christmas. I thank Rick van den Noort for correcting me on this.
Sinterklaas & Canadian soldiers 1944
I found these comments on this site about Christmas traditions in The Netherlands;
Sinterklaas
In Holland most people celebrate a feast before Christmas on 5 December. They call that feast “Sinterklaas”. On 5 December a man called Sinterklaas and his assistant Zwarte Piet [black Piet] visit homes and bring presents to children.
Sinterklaas really lived, but that was about 600 years ago in Turkey. Sint Nicolaas was a rich bishop who gave money to the poor. Sinterklaas always rides on his horse Schimmel and he always has an assistant called Zwarte Piet; were Zwarte Piet comes from is still a mystery. The black assistants make jokes, do acrobatics and devide gingernuts and other candies to the children.
Sinterklaas is an old man with a long white beard, he wears a red costume with golden stripes, a mitre on his head and he also has a golden rod in his hand. Zwarte Piet has a pitch- dark skin, curly hair, red lipstick on, and has earrings on. Sinterklaas always comes by steamship to Holland Mid November and goes back the same way on 6 December. They come from Spain (?). Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet can’t be everywear at the same time, therefore there are a lot of helpers of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet. These people dress like Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet and do what they do.
Most people in Holland celebrate Sinterklaas as following: The little children, who still believe that Sinterklaas really exists, put their shoe next to the chimney with some straw and a carrot (for Sinterklaas’s horse). The next morning they’ll find a present or a candy in their shoe. At 5 December Sinterklaas brings presents to the children, ‘personally’ or by one of his helpers. The adults celebrate it by giving presents, wrapped in a surprise with a poem included, to each other.
In Holland the Sinterklaas tradition is (still) stronger than the Santa Claus tradition. Some people, however, give presents to each other at Christmas.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Taarik and Aaron
Another comment from the above site;
Sinterklaas and Changing Customs in the Netherlands from Corien Meijvogel, a Dutch expatriot in Germany
I found your “Christmas in the Netherlands!” page whilst looking for information on Sinterklaas for my german colleages. I am a “dutchie” living and working in Germany.
The Sinterklaas-description given by Taarik and Aaron is closer to the truth than your version. [NOTE: We made corrections.]
Whilst roaming the net looking for Sinterklaas-information, I also ran across a dutch site giving the results of a recent survey on Sinterklaas and Christmas in the Netherlands: although the number of families celebrating Sinterklaas has decreased, the number of families celebrating Christmas (with gifts) has not increased. The percentage of people not exchanging gifts at all has increased to 29% (in 1987: 10%). Eight out of ten (84%) dutch consider it very important that the Sinterklaas tradition stays alive.
Apparently, commercial pressure is increasingly trying to force people to celebrate Christmas “the american way”, i.e. with gifts and move away from Sinterklaas. 60% of the people interviewed in the survey thought shops were not giving enough attention to Sinterklaas (with respect to decorations etc.) and a large majority (89%) thinks Christmas-items should not be sold before the 5th of December (Sinterklaas’s birthday-party). Moreover, 56% think “gifts do not belong in the christmas tradition, because it doesn’t fit in the celebrating of Christ’s birth”. Enough boring statistics !
I myself were sad to hear from my family in the Netherlands that there too the Sinterklaas tradition is slowly but surely falling apart, my brother being the first one to switch from Sinterklaas to Christmas. My husband, who is german, was brought up in the german Christmas tradition, i.e. the Christ-child comes around on Christmas Eve and brings presents. As we live in Germany, I am now having “the best of both worlds”, going to the Netherlands for Sinterklaas and celebrating Christmas at home here in Germany.
Hope you have a wonderful festive season !!
Greetings from Bremen, Germany
Corien Meijvogel
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