How to describe Sinterklaas... I suppose the only comparison
that makes sense is to Santa Clause. There are marked differences, however.
Sinterklaas doesn’t live in the North Pole, he lives in Spain. He doesn’t have
a sleigh pulled by reindeer, he rides a white horse named Amerigo. He doesn’t
have elves or brownies that help him, he has helpers, all of whom are named
Pieter (Peter). These helpers are called Zwarte Piet, or
Black Piet, because they are all black, descendents of Spanish Moors. The
Pieters are all very silly, and sometimes very stupid. Every night between
November 20 and December 5 children leave out a shoe, a bowl of water and lump
of sugar for Amerigo, and then they sing songs about Sinterklaas before they go
to bed. Sinterklaas and the Pieters come every night to leave gifts and
peppernoten (ginger-snap type cookies) in the children’s shoes.
During this time parents often leave notes purportedly from
Sinterklaas in the children’s shoes, citing instances of disobedience or
misbehavior, and encouraging good behavior. Any unwanted behavior during the
day is quickly checked with the threat of Sinterklaas finding out and not
visiting that night.
Today Sinterklaas visited the town where the girls go to
school. He started at one end of town and ended up at the large meeting hall
near the school. As he rode his (wooden) horse through the town, people joined
in and walked behind, making a parade. Accompanying Sinterklaas were about
forty Zwarte Piets, about twenty of whom made up a small marching band playing
traditional Sinterklaas songs. The rest of the Piets ran around the crowd
acting silly and passing out peppernoten and candy to everyone. They would
knock on the doors of some of the houses and give peppernoten to the people
inside. By the end some of the Piets didn’t even knock, they just shoved
peppernoten and candy through the mail slot into the house and moved on! When
the parade arrived at the meeting hall everyone went in and sang Sinterklaas
songs.
It was so much fun. The girls loved it, even the Eldest, who
doesn’t believe any more that Sinterklaas is real. It was a tad grating on my
politically correct American sensibilities at first, being surrounded by white
people in black-face, but I got over that quickly enough, and had a marvelous
time.
This is a picture I found on Google of Sinterklaas and two of his Zwarte Piets:
