Saint Nicolas
 

On a lighter tone, and because I need it and maybe some others, I wanted to ask you who among you is celebrating Saint-Nicolas (or St Niklaas, or St Nicholas, or St Nikolas).

In Belgium St Nicolas is the Saint who gives away toys for well behaving children.
The bad behawing children are taken care of by 'Zwarte Piet' or 'Père Fouettard' - he comes grimed as a Saracen, even if some politically correct pressure groups want to either to remove him or have him white.
St Nicolas comes on the 6th of december.

So the planning is usually the following :
Children get (magically) flyers with ideas of toys starting in ... october. TV ads increases dramatically so that children are made aware of the new toys St Nicolas imagined during the year.

Children then write a list of what they would want St Nicolas bring to them - here the flyers are of enormous importance for small childre who can cut pics

Parents sit down with children and write a letter to 'le grand Saint'.

The week of the 6th, most children get small gifts. For this they must :
- Put their shoes in front of the chimney (if none available, use your imaginateion, St Nicolas is supposed to come through chimneys).
- put a carrot close to the shoes - St Nicolas uses a trustworthy donkey in his journeys.
- put a beer in front of the chimney (we're ion Belgium) for St Nicolas (this is a variant, some don't).

Then on the 6th the whole bunch of gifts are given to the children...(or on the saturday closest).

So, do you do the same ?
Are there other dates than Xmas and Father Xmas in your countries ?

mvg

beer ;-) just got to be Belgium,

Father Christmas (not santa claus who comes to us from a shop in New York I understand) gets sherry, a mince pie and a carrot or swede for Rudolph.

I introduced this custom to a few friends at work, albeit much scaled down. The nurses always take off their street shoes and leave them outside their lockers. For a few favorites, I leave a few small treats or small gift anonymously on Dec 6.
The act has caught on, with several others doing the same, or taking the custom home to their children.

Of course we celebrate Sinterklaas! When our son was young, we went to see Sinterklaas in Antwerpen where he arrived by boat on the Schelde. Just as he did yesterday. A big event, year after year. Now that our son is an adult, we still buy him (and his GF) chocolate figures, marsepein (marzipan) and speculoos.

Sinterklaas arrived in the Netherlands yesterday. He landed in Meppel this year, and by magic managed to be in our town just seconds later. :) He arrives here by helicopter though, no steam boat. Amerigo, his white horse awaits him, with the Pieten. We had a mixture of Pieten this year, though no rainbow Piets, thank goodness. They were either the traditional blackface Piets or one with sooty faces, which is what he is going to develop into over the next few years.
Our grandsons put out their shoes last night and received a small gift.
They celebrate on the evening of the 5th with their Dutch grandparents and cousins. On the 6th Sinterklaas heads back to Spain, where he lives. The 5th is traditionally pakjesavond, when the gifts are given, rather than the 6th.
The adults all make a surprise, with a gift in it, and write a poem of course. The children get surprises, and poems too. This year our eldest GS will be making one for a school friend and one for Pakjesavond as well, since at 9 he no longer believes in it all. The six year old doesn't really either, but is afraid to admit it in case he doesn't get anything :).

My son was part of the TV crew covering Sinterklaas arriving, as he is nearly every year. There was some question of whether it should go ahead or not, but security was already tight, and it was decided that the children couldn't be disappointed.

If one saint in the Catholic pantheon does exist, it is Sinterklaas. The nicest part for me is looking around for presents for the Most Beloved One. Around this time I always think the collection should be it, but then I always see something else which is also nice to give.
For years I've played the character of Sinterklaas at work. It's a good format for reflection on the past year and to express some criticisms in an acceptable way. And of course the running gag of a colleague who has misbehaved and is to be taken to Spain.

<<On the 6th Sinterklaas heads back to Spain, where he lives. The 5th is traditionally pakjesavond, when the gifts are given, rather than the 6th.>>
Most probably he travels through Belgium after his visit to the Netherlands because the 6th in the morning is when our children get their presents. ;-)

As an outsider, I have never understood why they celebrate on the 5th, rather than the 6th Myriam.

Even after more than 30 years here the whole Sinterklaas thing remains something of a mystery to me. I guess with us both being British we have never really adopted it. Our sons always preferred to celebrate Christmas with gifts rather than Sinterklaas when they were younger.
Nowadays two of them celebrate both. Sinterklaas with the in-laws, Christmas with us.

Sorry - our Santa Claus (St Nick) comes on the 25th - nothing at all happens Dec 6 - unless Chanukah is really early, which it is this year - from 12/6 to 12/14.

»the whole Sinterklaas thing remains something of a mystery«
For adults it is a tongue in cheek affair, which is only to be understood when you've been part of the game as a young child.
On my part Santa Claus is a silly, heavy commercialised thing (Coca Cola in the midst of winter?). But I've never been a young child longing for Father Christmas.

Saint Nicolas is very much celebrated in Alsace, Lorraine and French Flanders and even slightly beyond those zones depending on local interest. Unfortunately he often arrives by helicopter in the parking lot of the Cora hypermarket on December 6th, so it is not always as cute as it used to be. However, I very much approve of the fact that they have not completely eliminated the <i>Père Fouettard</i> who follows him around with his cat-of-9-tails to whip the disobedient children, or at least threaten to do so.

I am dismayed that apparently in the Netherlands they have been trying to eliminate <i>Zwarte Piet</i> for reasons of racial discrimination. You'd think they would know that his face is black from coal and not because he is an illegal migrant.

In any case, I will always celebrate December 6th because it is my mother's birthday.

In the Netherlands it is December 5, in the evening. In Belgium the morning of December 6.
I always liked the tradition of making rhymes to go with the gifts. It's a great family evening, even after the children stop believing in it. Not so much in Belgium, where it is just for the children.

"I am dismayed that apparently in the Netherlands they have been trying to eliminate Zwarte Piet for reasons of racial discrimination. You'd think they would know that his face is black from coal and not because he is an illegal migrant."
The whole discussion was kicked off by the UN
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/P...14013&LangID=E
conventionally forgetting to mention the cheeky chappie lives and works in other counties too. :-(

Thanks for your replies.
I apologize for - again - confusing the city of St Niklaas and Sinterklaas...

I didn't understand anything from the UN resolve, it seemed to me that they are turning in circles and telling others to solve the issue... We should also rewrite 'Tintin au Congo', one of the most racist books I've read, but also a good reflect of how people saw things at the time. It is also good to keep reminders of how racists we were in some older times (of course we're all perfect now).

I didn't know Saint Nicolas was including adults, it is a discovery for me.

Thank you for participating in this thread.
We have bought (way too many) gifts that are now stored until 6th of dec for our children. I'll try to convince my wife we also deserve a gift for ourselves...

Would St Nicolas be kind enough to bring wine in his 'hotte' for me ? (hod or basket says googletranslate).

mvg

We should also rewrite 'Tintin au Congo', one of the most racist books I've read, but also a good reflect of how people saw things at the time.>

Yes such an outrageous book along with ones Herge expressed Nazi leanings but the In the Congo was the worst - my son would read it when he was young and laughed about the pictures - I of course put him straight and laughed too about the huge huge lips and fat bellies - Congolese that looked more like gorillas than humans.

To me it showed more about the terrible Belgian way they ruled with terror over their colonies.

Too bad it is still popular probably with Belgian and French kids?

In the part of Italy where I live, the Befana, a good witch, comes on Epiphany (January 6th) bringing presents to good little children and a lump of coal to naughty little children. The children hang their stockings by the fireplace on the night of the 5th. It's become traditional to give both some gifts and also some black rock candy, representing coal, since most of us are both naughty and nice.

In other parts of Italy, children get gifts from Santa Lucia, who comes down from heaven on the night between the 12th and the 13th of December, and makes the rounds with her donkey laden with gifts. The children leave some hay for the donkey.

An Italian saying is, "Santa Lucia, il giorno più corto che ci sia". (Santa Lucia, the shortest day there is.) I wondered why the 13th was considered the shortest day, but then I remembered that before the Gregorian calendar reform in the 1700s, the solar year and the calendar year were off by 11 days. They would have been off by 8 days about 300 years earlier, when that saying must have been true. The saying must be over 500 years old.

Another calendar saying related to the holidays is, "Santi Innocentini, finite le feste, finiti i quattrini." (Little Holy Innocents, finished the holidays, finished the money.) (December 28th, commemorating the murder of little Jewish boys by Herod.)

Santa Lucia is also celebrated in Sweden on Dec 13 but it sounds like a different tradition to the one celebrated in Italy. It is magical and if you are in Sweden at that time of the year, it is worth seeing. You can buy tickets for it. Presents are given on Christmas Eve.

http://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/sweden.shtml

Saint Nicolas is more or less a nationwide custom in Germany as well.
Children will put one boot outside their bedroom on Dec 5, and Saint Nicolas will fill it overnight with sweets and small toys. The "limit" is usually what fits in the boot - so it's typically only smaller gifts and not such a grand thing as in NL or Flanders.

The real truckload of presents "arrives" on Dec 24 and will be put under the Christmas tree in the main living room.
This room will typically be off-limits to the kids from mid-day on so the parents can decorate the tree and arrange the presents. Once it got dark, the kids are called in to discover their presents.

Do other countries that celebrate Sinterklaas also have chocolate letters, or is that a purely Dutch thing? Best bit of it for me :).

Belgium has adopted the chocolate letters (at least where I live, close to the B/NL border) but they sure were not part of the sweets when I was a kid, or even when my son was a kid. Chocolate figures, yes! Lots of them and often too pretty to be eaten.

Chocolate letters, figures and coins, speculoos, marzepan...

Belgian shops do the most beautiful chocolate figures, made of good chocolate. If you're in Antwerp go to Chocolate Line on the Meir to see them produced in the kitchen of the former royal palace.

I'm sorry to disappoint everybody, but he won't be coming this year.

St Nicholas was bishop of Myra (now Demre). Because of worries about illegal migrants coming through Turkey, Europe will probably close the border to him.

Clearly time for another visit to wonderful Antwerp :).

There used to be fantastic marzipan figures in the banketbakkers here, for Sinterklaas, but they seem to have fallen out of favour. Personally I don't like marzipan, but the rest of the family do, and I would sometimes buy them an appropriate figure if I could find one.

One year we celebrated Christmas with our oldest son and his (now ex-)wife. Middle son had until then insisted on Turkey for Christmas dinner, but our German DIL had other ideas. She ask a local bakker, who she used a lot for her catering business, to make a marzipan turkey for middle son, so he still had turkey for Christmas. It was so beautifully made it was almost too good to eat.

Haven't seen chocolate letters here, but all other kinds of chocolate figures and marzipan and speculoos are typical Christmas sweet treats. And lebkuchen/ gingerbread, of course.

<< St Nicholas was bishop of Myra (now Demre). Because of worries about illegal migrants coming through Turkey, Europe will probably close the border to him. >>

!!!

Odin, I'm familiar somewhat with the Swedish tradition of Santa Lucia, because there was a Swedish settlement 300 years ago in the part of Pennsylvania where I used to live, and local residents celebrated Santa Lucia.

In Italy, Santa Lucia is pictured with a crown of candles, but I've never heard mention of those candles in the celebration of her feast day. However, I don't live in a part of Italy where these traditions are upheld. She's a very beloved saint in Sicily, and also children in northern Italy expect presents from her. We had a good friend from Umbria whose family got gifts from Santa Lucia, and she continued the tradition with her children. I've never heard of anyone else from Umbria who followed this custom, though. Maybe our friend's family was originally from northern Italy.

With regard to chocolate, the Befana (the good witch I mentioned above) usually brings chocolate coins. (When I was a child in the US, Jewish children often got these chocolate coins for Hanukkah.)

When my husband was a little boy, the Befana brought oranges to children, and not much else. I have a very old recipe from my husband's family for a typical Ephiphany sweet (known only in the region where I live.) This recipe has been up-dated by other families, but I always make the old version every year. I realized a few years ago, that all of the ingredients were things that a peasant family would have in the house without buying anything - except orange peel, and obviously the children's oranges provided that!

bvlenci - I'm sure you'll be OK, as Befana won't be affected.

Sinterklaas has arrived safely, and although the Bishop of Myra, he has long since retired to Spain.

We used to get chocolate coins in our stockings as children, along with an apple and an orange.

I thought I would add a sighting of St. Nicholas in 2010 in Regensburg. It is a little know fact that he drives a red tractor. Gary


https://mcchelsea.smugmug.com/Advent...us%20Tag-M.jpg

This week-end we'll send the list of the desired gifts to Saint-Nicolas.

The gifts are already safely stored in the cellar.

Willit: I hope she's heard that Italy has restricted the airspace over Rome!

I for one would not mind receiving a chocolate letter. Sounds delightful.

I find »speculaas« the most addictive. This is how it should be http://www.weltevreten.nl/wp-content...speculaas6.jpg