Keskustelujen arkisto

A Dutch tradition for Christmas is watching movies on tv. Half past eight PM, and every year the same old movies: the Home Alone quadrology, the four Harry Potter movies (the fifth and sixth movie haven't premiered on tv yet), Matilda, Planes Traines and Automobiles, Scrooged (1988), and what not more.

A completely different thing is Sinterklaas. I think Rob still knows who he is. It's Nicolaas van Myra, made Saint Nicholas in Holland. We're celebrating it since the times when Sir Francis Drake sailed around America's west coast. Sinterklaas and the Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) come with a steamboat from Spain to the Netherlands about mid-November. This is being broadcasted on tv. Of course, to make it more dramatic, some goes wrong every year. In 2008 the steamboat headed TROUGH a rainbow, which made all the pages in the Big Book blanc. In the Big Book is a list of all the children in Holland and behind it if they have been nice or naughty. The solution? They had to go trough the rainbow again.
From mid-November children in Holland set their shoes for the fireplace. Sinterklaas puts a small present in it.
The fifth of December (or sixth in Belgium) Sinterklaas goes home. It's pakjesavond (package-evening/presents-evening). Then the big presents are delivered at home and all evening the family is packing out.

This went with the Dutch colonists to America (we had New York, remember?) and also the other people came to know about it. When the official language became English, they englished the name and Sinterklaas became Santa Claus (you pronunce it still the same) and made some small adjustments. It spread over the world and now everyone knows about it without actually knowing about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

OUCH! As far as I know, Zwarte Piet spanks the badly behaved kids now (usually on their soft rear ends). Before 1800 or so, he had a worse reputation-and he was meaner and more violent to children. He was originally The Devil (who became the slave of Saint Nicholas (A Greek, of Myra in Asia Minor(now Turkey)). That represented the transformation of Nicholas from a sinner (the Devil's slave) to a righteous person (in control of temptaion to sin (The Devil's ways). In the last 175-250 years, Zwarte Piet has become the friend, companion and willing helper of Sinterklaas, and a milder threat to badly-behaved little girls and boys.
Imagine a man dressed up as Zwarte Piet, going along with a man dressed up as Sinterklaas, and going to all the homes in Holland and Flanders and cutting off the fingers of all the bad little kiddies!
I can imagine parents before 1800 threatening their kids that that would happen to them, to try to make them behave better.
I am Jewish. We were just told that we'd be "sold to The Gypsies", if we wouldn't behave well.