Sinterklass Arrives in Holland

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here in Europe!

We are learning that in Holland the big event for children is the 6th of December. Saint Nicholas day.
No one really seems to remember much about the fellow's early days, except that he was kind to children. I think they don't want to frighten children with the tepid story about kids in a pot.
It seems that he shows up and puts goodies in a wooden shoe left out for that purpose by the kiddies. No reindeer here in Holland, just a magic white horse which flies from rooftop to rooftop. The Children remember the horse and leave a carrot out to give him strength to finish the long night. Once on the roof Santa... er... Sinter and his trusty Dutch helper "little black Pete" go down the chimney. Pete used to be a servant (slave) but nowadays he's just a helper who got black going down the chimneys, and he seems to have multiplied faster than elves ever could. This is a non-NCAAP approved event. These "Zwarte Piets" are gymnastic because they have to go up and down chimneys. Oh, I almost forgot, instead of leaving coal for bad kids, Pete carries a switch of reeds and a sack to put them in and then takes them to Spain to work in the coal mines! Over the years he's softened into a clownlike, friendly present giver.
So we call Santa "Sinter" in Dutch. In place of reindeer he has a white horse to bring him to Holland, instead of stockings we have wooden shoes, instead of elves we have little black Petes and we leave carrots out instead of milk and cookies. And all this happens on the night of the 5th instead of the 24th December. (I always thought that doing the whole world in one night would be difficult.)

Since Holland has water everywhere, Sinterklaas usually arrives by boat and then hops on a horse to do a tour of town in the middle of November in order to remind kids to be good. Special foods seem important to the Sinterklaas festivities. Ginger-cinnamon-clove cookies called spekuloos are pervasive. Some look like Sinter himself! Little round ones called peppernotten are almost used like confetti. The town where we saw Sinter yesterday is Zwolle in Holland. Marzipan is high on the list in Zwolle at Christmas time. They seriously go all out making all kinds of pigs out of Marzipan. Nutty cakes, cookies and pies abound, and don't forget the chocolate Sinters (and Petes).

We had a fun Saturday P-day watching the happenings after a Friday night meeting with the Stake President in Zwolle. We feel partly "naturalized" now and will always have a bit of Netherlandish tradition in our Christmases I'm sure.