Sint and Piet

Okay, friends and faithful readers, here is my attempt to explain what is happening this time of year in the Netherlands, as it seems fairly different compared to the rest of the world. Tomorrow we are hosting a Sinterklaas party at our home. In French, my understanding is that Sinterklass is translated Saint Nicholas, and in France and Belgium and parts of Germany, he doesn’t come tomorrow but the next day, December 6. The rest of the world more or less knows this character as Santa Claus, and I think it is easy to see the linguistic relationship between Sinterklaas and Santa Claus. But let me try to explain what happens in the Netherlands. It is a unique part of Dutch culture. I'm sure I will get a few details wrong, and all my Dutch readers can correct me.

The real St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, lived in Turkey. For some reason over the years, the Dutch Sinterklaas moved to Spain. For three weeks every year he comes to the Netherlands, for the rest of the year I imagine he enjoys sangria, tapas and Spanish beaches. He arrives in mid-November by steamship and is accompanied by his helper Zwarte Piet. Somehow, Piet has evolved into more than one person, so there are all sorts of Piets, and they are everywhere. You can see a band of Zwarte Piets in the picture above, taken three weeks ago on the day Sinterklaas’s ship came to Dordrecht. “Zwart” is the Dutch word for “black,” and Piet is black because he is a Moor and because he is a chimney sweep. A couple of days ago there was a Piet in the grocery store, wearing black face, dressed like a fop, making balloon animals for kids. It is not unusual to see children wearing Piet hats with their faces painted black. There is short TV show that Gretchen watches every day where various Piets are trying to stave off a villain who is trying to stop Sinterklaas from giving gifts to children. This year the bad guy is trying to deliver Brussel sprouts dipped in chocolate to all the kids and all the various Piets (like Music Piet who wears Elvis’s hair, Hocus Pocus Piet who does magic, Chef Piet, etc) are running around in with bright red lips and black faces trying to save the day.

As an American, I have to ask the simple question, “What the _____?” He looks like a cast-off from a minstrel show, like Al Jolsen with a funny hat. I simply cannot imagine the outrage and outcry in America if Santa didn’t have Buddy the Elf but instead had a little black helper that was portrayed by white people in black make up. The story is that a few years ago the Netherlands tried to create a rainbow coalition of Piets – purple Piet, red Piet, green Piet, etc, but it didn’t take. He’s back to being black. So, in the country known as perhaps the most liberal country in the world, a national symbol is a guy in black face. One reason, I suppose, that this is accepted is that there is no history of slavery here. (Although the “Golden Age” of the Netherlands was financed in large part by their involvement in the slave trade.)

Piet seems a bit on the mischievous side, but he’s evolved to become nicer over the years. He used to carry both a bag and a stick, and the word on the street was that if you had been “bad” the year before he’d club you with the stick and put you in the bag and take you to Spain. Why anyone would protest getting out of the endless cold drizzle here for sunny Spain is beyond me, but eventually a cadre of childrearing experts convinced the local population that it wasn’t healthy for children to have the threat of kidnapping hanging over their heads.

Piet does all the heavy lifting for Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas rides a white horse (but did I hear he rides a donkey in Belgium?) and I’m not 100% sure if both Sint and Piet hop up on the rooftops or just Piet, but it is Piet who goes down chimneys and puts presents in shoes. After Sint and Piet show up in mid-November, children put out their shoes every night or three times a week or weekly depending on the inclination of the parents, and Piet puts a present in the shoe overnight. Mandarin oranges, pepernotje cookies, and chocolate letters are all staple gifts in the days leading up to the big day, which is tomorrow. Most Dutch families do a gift exchange tomorrow night.

As a kid I was baffled by the logistics of Santa Claus – how he could get from the North Pole and around the world to all the places he needed to get to in one 24-hour period. It’s more manageable for Sinterklaas, he only needs to handle one relatively small country. In traditional Dutch families, gifts are given in the period leading up to and including tomorrow. Traditional Dutch families don’t exchange presents on Christmas Day. That is a holiday here, but the orgy of stockings and presents that are normal in America doesn’t happen here on that day. And the gift giving tomorrow pales in comparison to what happens on Christmas Day in the US. Dutch parents don’t feel the compulsion to give as much stuff as we do.

For a traditional adult Sinterklaas party, such as we are having tomorrow, it is customary to write a poem for the person you are giving a gift to. Usually, the poem makes fun of a bad habit of the gift’s recipient. The definition of poetry in this case is that it has to rhyme, which is something I have never been good at. But I have written a horrible poem, and have my gifts all set. And the menu is simple – hot chocolate with whipped cream and kruidnotje cookies. Wish you were here to see it all for yourself.