Ho, ho, ho

Usually when it comes to events, my blog is normally the belated version. For once, today I am not on time but ahead of time! As the title suggests, it's we're meeting Santa today - Sinterklaas to be precise. Courtesy and thanks to the Dutch community. Instead of elves, he has good, old dependable Black Pete.

Sinterklaas

In the Netherlands and Belgium (and in some of their ex-colonies), Saint Nicholas' (Sint Nicolaas, Sinterklaas) eve is the occasion for gift-giving, when his alleged birthday — actually his name day, the day he died — is celebrated. In this case, roles are reversed, though, in that Sinterklaas is the one who gives the presents.

In recent years, Christmas (along with Santa Claus, a figure partially derived from Sinterklaas) has been pushed by shopkeepers as another gift-giving festival, with some success, although, especially for young children, Saint Nicholas' eve is still much more important than Christmas.

The Dutch always write his name as one word. The Americans, influenced by Santa Claus sometimes write it incorrectly as Sinter Klaas. The name Sinterklaas is derived from Middle Dutch Sinte Klaas.

In the Netherlands, in the evening of December 5 (and thus the eve of 6 December, his name day), Sinterklaas brings presents to every child that has been good in the past year (in practice to all children). In Belgium, children discover the presents on the morning of December 6. Sinterklaas wears a red bishop's dress including a red mitre, rides a white horse (called Amerigo) over the rooftops and is assisted by many mischievous helpers with black faces and colourful Moorish dresses, dating back two centuries. These helpers are called 'Zwarte Pieten' (Black Petes). During the Middle-ages Zwarte Piet was a name for the devil. Having triumphed over evil, it was said that on Saint Nicholas eve the devil was shackled and made his slave.

Although the character of Black Pete later came to acquire racial connotations, his origins were in the devil figure. This racialization is reflected in the reworking of the characters' mythos. Their blackness was racial, with Pete being an imported African servant of Saint Nicholas since 1850 (though some people say Pete was a slave who, when Sinterklaas bought him his freedom, was so grateful that he stayed to assist him). Today however, the more politically correct explanation that Pete's face is "black from soot" (as Pete has to climb through chimneys to deliver his gifts) is used. Traditionally Saint Nicholas only had one helper, whose name varied wildly. "Piet(er)" the name in use now can be traced back to a book from 1891. The frame shift to multiple Petes was more or less a result of the assistance provided by the Canadian army to the reception of the saint in 1945 Amsterdam.

Sinterklaas has a long white beard, holds a long gold coloured staff with a fancy curled top in his hand (a crozier) and carries a big book with all the children's names in it, and whether they have been good or bad.

Each year in November Sinterklaas arrives by steamer 'from Spain', and is then paraded through the streets of the town he arrives in (actually in every town of the Netherlands and Belgium), welcomed by cheering and singing children. His Zwarte Pieten throw candy and small, round gingerbread-like cookies (often wrongly called Pepernoten instead of their real name, kruidnoten which in english is called "spiced short bread") into the crowd. The children welcome him by singing traditional Sinterklaas songs.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

Post-houmous (22/11/06): I've just realised what a boring and crappy entry this is.