Saturday, December 06, 2008
Sinterklaas
Yesterday morning I woke up a bit late (even compared to average Saturdays standards).
The reason for that was the happening of the previous evening: sinterklaasavond.
Sinterklaasavond, or pakjesavond which tranlates as "presents' evening", is the main festivity in the dutch calendar and it's celebrated every year on December 5th, Saint Nicholas' eve.
Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas in dutch, was a Greek bishop, patron saint of children. He's celebrated in mostly all the Countries in central and eastern Europe, as well as in the most extreme eastern outposts of Italy: Trieste and Monfalcone.
He's an old guy dressed like a bishop and, in the dutch tradition, he's supposingly coming from Spain every year, riding a white horse (het Paard van Sinterklaas) and followed by his personal helper Zwarte Piet, or Black Peter, a Moorish kid that stories tell Sinterklaas resqued from prison and now, in sign of gratitude, helps him in delivering presents to children.
Sinterklaasavond in The Netherlands is a holiday especially for children, and at this time they are supposed to get presents if they were good in the past year. It's in fact Sinterklaas that brings presents in The Netherlands, not Santa Claus, la Befana (which I discover just now it's a peculiar character of Italy only), the Three Kings, any kind of italian Madonna or Child Jesus (as my grandmother used to tell me. I have to admit this separations of roles confused me a bit when I was young).
There are a lot of cooking traditions, funny ways of wrapping the presents and to write the cards, but I will talk about this later on.
(Or you can check on Wikipedia.)
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6 comments:
Questa volta ho il sottile piacere di puntualizzare pesantemente, che S. Nicola non è festeggiato solo a Trieste e monfalcone, bensì anche in Friuli e Tarvisio come da descrizione seguente:
"La fieste di San Nicola e ven celebrade in tantis nazions, ancje se in formis diviersis:
in Olande, il 6 dicembar, il Sant, clamât lì "Sinterklaas" si aggire par Amsterdam; in chel pais nol è compagnât dai krampus ma invecit da un o plui servos neris clamâts Zwarte Piet; simpri in Olande, in te citât di Leida, i students e metin in sene une sfilade, doprant vecjos costums e lant daûr a un cjaruç tirât da cjavai ducj bardas; sul cjaruç al guide la procession, vistût da San Nicolò, il prin de scuele, il plui brâf."
Also, S. Nicola is the patron of Bari and, as such, is also celebrated there. (Where he has been killed)
pol non centrar ma al duti fri shop sè un mazzo de carte con su scrit "crni peter"
mz
http://obupani.tuditi.delo.si/2006/10/
mz
sicuramente non centra ma in slovenia gò trovà delle patatine gusto "juicy ham and honey"
mz
Hmm... a Greek bishop and a moorish kid..
Back in the day when I was getting candy in my shoe from the Sint he was just a nice old man who came to holland on a "stoomboot" from Madrid and his "Pietten" put the candy in my shoe.
Apparently he also liked it when I put a carrot in my shoe for the horse. Strangely enough we ate a lot of carrot-cake during those days.....
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