First year in Nederland — November

In the middle of November I joined the rest of Wageningen to welcome Sinterklaas at the Wageningen harbour. What a fun and novel experience!

Legend has it that every year Sinterklaas comes from Spain by steamboat to reward good children with gifts. He’s very similar to the Santa Clause figure I know, apart from the fact that he looks more religious and serious in his bishop’s garb. But the whole arrival is still a barrel of fun, helped along by a troop of “Zwarte Pieten” (Black Peter’s) who hand out pepernoten (round, marble sized biscuits) and candy. Some great videos of Sinterklaas’s arrival at Wageningen are on Youtube this year, watch one of them here.

Sinterklaas arrives in town!

For me the most entertaining part was watching the reactions of the children. Wherever a Zwarte Piet went in the parade, he was flocked by kids with outstretched hands. Sinterklaas was much more revered, with children only expectantly shaking his hand. The afternoon was an experience: random bursts of Christmas song, children and adults with painted black faces, crazy hoop earrings and black curly wigs, Sinterklaas’ carriage trek to the Stadshuis (Town Hall) to meet the mayor, kids chasing a scurrying Piet down the streets with screams of “Piiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeet!, “Piiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeet!”. There was a real sense of community and a lot of laughs.

Guess who?!

The whole Zwarte Piet phenomenon is quite a contagious issue. If not for the Dutch, then definitely for foreigners experiencing it for the first time. I deliberately chose not to research Sinterklaas on the net, and instead asked various Dutch people their thoughts on Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet. Some say the original Zwarte Pieten (sounds like there were three) were Sinterklaas’ slaves. Other people say they were orphans saved by the saint and served him out of gratitude. Other people say they were demons the saint turned to good, while some people say they are only black because they have to climb down the chimneys to deliver the gifts. Whatever the origin of Zwarte Piet, I think today he is a wonderfully fun, mischievous character in an unusually straight-faced and liberal society. I think he’s simply great.

The arrival of Sinterklaas two weeks ago will now culminate on the 5th of December with Pakjesavond / Sinterklaasavond. This is the night when most Dutch children will receive their gifts, together with simple poems to give them clues as to what the gifts contain. Adults do not give each other terribly elaborate gifts. They rather give each other a small token, often something fun, ludicrous and handmade. These gifts are also accompanied by a poem. I have been told that the poems adults hand each other are sometimes used to highlight a person’s bad habits or quirks in jest. What a laugh! And no-one needs to be left out of the fun – enter the name of the person, the age, a character trait and the gift you’re giving and a custom-made Dutch poem will pop up.

We have invited some people over to our house for pakjesavond, and on the table we’ll have borrelhapjes (snacks), pepernoten, big chocolate letters featuring each person’s initial, taai-taai biscuits and a big speculaas popje (biscuit doll). Personally, I feel that getting to know people and finding communality is what Christmas is all about. And Sinterklaasavond is the perfect excuse.

Tags: expat life, sinterklaas

This entry was posted on 29 Nov 2009 at 22:41 and is filed under Lizelle in NL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.