One of my favorite things about living in the Netherlands is that they love to celebrate things. I swear there has been a festival or market or event every weekend since being here, and this weekend was by far my favorite one, because SINTERKLAAS came to town!! Here's a little back story on the interesting story of Sinterklaas....
From mid November through December 6th (St. Nicks' day), dutch folks celebrate Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas). He lives in Madrid, Spain and travels with his servants called "Zwarte Pieten" (aka, black peters....) to all the ports in the Netherlands. Sinterklaas leads a procession through the town riding on a white horse while his helpers hand out presents and cookies. Children are told that Zwarte Pieten keep records of all the things they have done in the past year in a big books. Good children will get presents, but bad children will be put in a sack and the Zwarte Pieten will take them to Spain for a year to teach them how to behave (basically, bad behavior = you will be kidnaped). Throughout this celebratory month kids leave their shoes out for Zwarte Peit to climb down the chimney and put presents in their shoes while Sinterklaas hangs out on the roof on his white horse. On St. Nicholas' Eve (December 5th) children receive their big presents, and then Sinterklaas and his servants leave the Netherlands by ship and head back to Spain.
There are definitely some similar traditions towards how we celebrate the holidays (big guy in red and white robes on the roof bringing presents), but I'm not sure how things would fly in the US with people dressing up in blackface to be Zwarte Pieten. However, I do have to say it was pretty awesome seeing how excited both kids and parents were to see Sinterklaas and Zwarte Peiten during the parade - everyone was jumping up and down, giving high fives, singing, dancing.... it was quite cute and definitely got me in the mood for some festive holiday celebrating!
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