Sinterklaas

On 5 December us Cloggies celebrate Sinterklaas. For information on this annual celebration click here. The evening of 4 December involves singing songs and putting some food ready for Sinterklaas´ white horse. Even though Tess and Yarrow are way past the age of Belief or even Suspended Disbelief, we still uphold this tradition. So with Niki (who had become increasingly fascinated by the Sinterklaas tradition, stories and seasonal foods) we sat down on the Day Bed, ate apple turnovers (baked by Tess and Yarrow) and sang Sinterklaas Kapoentje, Zie de wind waait door de bomen and other Golden Sinterklaas Oldies. Some food for Sinterklaas´ horse will be left in front of the fireplace, in the hope of some goodies tomorrow morning (for Tess and Yarrow, that is....). Below is a video clip of Sinterklaas´ traditional arrival in Holland on a steamboat from Spain, with his (yes, politically incorrect, but let´s get over that one) Black Pete helpers. It´s always a wonderful celebration for both children and adults (most of whom realize they would actually and dearly like to believe in the Saint...)



It is interesting that American Santa Claus is historically related to The Sint. ´

Sinterklaas is the basis for the North American figure of Santa Claus. It is often claimed that during the American War of Independence the inhabitants of New York City, a former Dutch colonial town (New Amsterdam) reinvented their Sinterklaas tradition, as Saint Nicholas was a symbol of the city's non-English past.The name Santa Claus supposedly derived from older Dutch Sinter Klaas. But the Saint Nicholas Society was not founded until 1835, almost half a century after the end of the war. In a study of the "children's books, periodicals and journals" of New Amsterdam, the scholar Charles Jones did not find references to Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas. Not all scholars agree with Jones's findings, which he reiterated in a book in 1978; Howard G. Hageman, of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, maintains that the tradition of celebrating Sinterklaas in New York existed in the early settlement of the Hudson Valley. He agrees that "there can be no question that by the time the revival of St. Nicholas came with Washington Irving, the traditional New Netherlands observance had completely disappeared."

Irving's stories prominently featured legends of the early Dutch settlers, so while the traditional practice may have died out, Irving's St. Nicholas may have been a revival of that dormant Dutch strand of folklore. The Saint Nicholas Society of New York celebrates a feast on 6 December to this day.´(from Wikipedia).