Today is Sinterklaas!
Today is December 5th, the day before Saint Nicholas' birthday and notable because it's gift giving day in the Netherlands.
Saint Nick (Sinterklaas, the prototype for Santaclaus...) was actually a bishop who lived in Turkey - but, for purposes of the Dutch legend, he lives in Spain, and arrives with his entourage in the Netherlands just a couple of weeks before his birthday by steam boat.
Saint Nick is the patron saint of children - which is another story altogether. Anyway - upon arrival in the Netherlands, he gets onto his white charger, and rides through the town or village while his assistants throw 'pepernoten' en 'kruidnoten' (special type of cookies, only available during this time of the year) and sweets at the gathered crowd of children. At night, he rides the roofs and capably assisted by his Moorish staff, delivers presents through the chimneys. A familiar story? Yes, it will be for most of us!
Once Sinterklaas has arrived in the country, kids put their clogs out in front of the heaters in the house at night (chimney or not...). They will put a carrot and some hay in the clogs, and add a dish of water to keep Sinterklaas' horse going (no alcoholic delights for the good saint himself!). In the morning, they look forward to finding some sweets - mostly filled chocolate mice, frogs, and sinterklaas lookalikes. Yum!
The good saint now gets out on the eve of his birthday to get the 'real' gifts out, and works throughout the early evening so that kids (of all ages) get their gifts. The family sits around and share their gifts, and read poems that may accompany the gifts as part of a nice and time-honored tradition.
Of course, there is just the one snag... of course Saint Nick has this book... the book of good children, and bad ones... GOOD children get presents, and BAD children get put into the jute sacks that are used to bring presents in, and taken to Spain where they have to stay for a whole year... Parents normally don't make too much of a deal of the consequences of not being good... but I remember when I was a kid that the very thought that the good Saint might know something that I didn't - something I might have done and had long since forgotten - was enough to be VERY relieved when presents arrived on the day. Little did I know that a year's holiday in Spain might have been a pretty good option ;)
Anyway - at our house one of the neighbors was the designated accomplish to deliver our presents to the front door, after which they applied their fists to the door to make everybody aware that Sinterklaas had been (I remember just about jumping out of my skin on more than one occasion when it sounded like someone was breaking the door down). We would RUN to the front door, yank it open, and look outside, completely and utterly flabbergasted with the fact that NOBODY WAS THERE... to find our gifts on the front door step, and happily drag them inside - safe for another year.
For those of you that celebrate Sinterklaas: een geweldige Sinterklaas avond toegewenst van het Mad Team!