Ummm…
Angel asked me to tell a bit more about Sinterklaas. Actually, after all of these years, I don’t know that I have all of the details but here is the gist- so to say- of the holiday.
First off, the Sint lives full time in Spain. A few weeks before the feast day of St.Nicholas , December 6, he loads up his steamboat ( what, I wonder, did he use before steamers were invented) with his horse, Amerigo, and his ‘helpers’, the Zwarte Pieten. It seems that all of these guys have the same name – Piet- and to differentiate them, they have nicknames, like Piet-with-the-glasses.
So, he loads up his steamer and heads for the Netherlands. Once here, he makes his official entrance and then he and the Piets settle down ‘somewhere’ and start organizing the gifts for the evening of December 5. Now, once they have arrived, the children put their shoes out every night- until the 5th- in the hope that one of the Piets might leave something in their shoe- a cookie, a chocolate, perhaps a small gift. In their empty shoes, the children often tuck in drawings or poems or wish-lists that they have made, or perhaps a carrot for Amerigo. This keeps the Sue-Piet pretty busy, trying to think of different treats to tuck into shoes, as the Sue-Piet spoils the children dreadfully.
The Piets are about as politically incorrect as one can get, words like ‘wacky’, ‘funny’, ‘harmless’ seem to describe them well.
also … zwart means black the color and piet is a name hence zwarte piet …:) in some of the stores they let the children put their
old shoes and fill them with goodies… you see all these old shoes and boots in the isles of the grocery store … and there is a parade when he comes in our neighborhood … with a band and such …I think its just a “Holland” thing maybe Belgium too … what do you think Sue ? Julie
Yep, Julie, Belgium, or at least Flanders, as well. And Sue, I’m in awe. I didn’t even know the name of Sin’t horse, and I’ve seen 37 sinterklaasavonden already. Good research! And by the way, when the pope doesn’t even care about being politically correct, why should an old bishop be bothered? Welcome back from Spain, guys!
Psst ! Amerigo is one of those names easily remembered…if you are American.
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa050498.htm
Pssst Sue,
from a reader in Belgium :
here the horse is called : “Mooi weer vandaag”
Don’t ask me why …
Sue do you give the kids the choco letters and
papernotten ? in their shoes ? … I send the
choco letters back home … now they love them there too … Julie
Marleen- considering what the weather is usually like in our neck of the woods, I find that pretty funny. In fact, very funny !
Julie- our holidays have become a mish-mash of dutch and american ones : the kids get the pepernoten ( tonight, in fact), tai-tai and such in their shoes, but on Christmas eve their letters are under the tree for them, wrapped as presents.
It’s very complicated…
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