Sinterklaas

I'm not quite sure how well I like Christmas here... The Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas Day on the 5th of December, which is basically the equivalent of Santa Claus in the US.

I talked briefly in my first post about how strange it is that Santa travels around with his black elves, but I still hadn't fully come to understand the weirdness of this. When people dress up as "Zwarte Petes", they paint their faces brown, put on red lipstick, and wear these strange clownish clothes. It sounds really weird, and looks really weird on cards and decorations, but in person, it's horrifying. Really. 

Before I talk about my first encounter with Zwarte Pete, I need to explain my preparations for Sinterklaas Day. Each staff member living in the house picked a name out of a hat, and had to buy a gift for them for 3 euros. So basically, a secret Santa kind of thing. On top of the gift, it is a Dutch tradition to write little poems for people on Sinterklaas Day. Of course, I picked the name of someone I didn't know very well...

Shopping for guys is hard, especially guys that you don't know anything about. So I figured, you couldn't go wrong with chocolate. The poem is what got me though... this is what I came up with.

If you can't read it, here's what it says:

Hey, Cam, I don't know you

But you seem pretty cool.

You're tall and you're handsome

And you rode your small bike like a fool.

I hear you're from Canada, eh?

Lots of snow, it has.

Make sure to say hey

Happy Sinterklaas!

Do I sense a poetry career in my future? HA. I thought I would make up for the bad writing skills with a drawing of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Pete.

The legend says that if you leave your shoe outside your door on Sinterklaas Day-Eve, Zwarte Pete will leave candy in it! So like a good little Dutch girl, I left out my shoe. Unfortunately, I had a late night shift at work, so I caught "Zwarte Pete" in the act.

I thought our hallway looked so cute with everyone's shoes outside of their doors! I felt like a kid when I woke up and ate some chocolate out of my shoe.

Throughout the day, kids go around and search for Zwarte Pete and get candies from him when they find him.  Lots of the Dutch people that live in the community house went home to be with their families for Sinterklaas festivities.

That night, we all had a party to open the gifts that we picked out for each other. Three of the Dutch kids living here organized the party so it would be authentic. At the beginning of the party, we sang some Sinterklaas songs to get us in a festive mood, and then, we watched a video.

To give you a better understanding of the holiday, you really should watch this video. But first, you need to watch "Gangnam Style" if you have not done so. 

Here is "Gangnam Style":

And here is the video we watched, "Zwarte Pieten Style":

Now, you think that this is weird and somewhat racist? Imagine two of these guys interrupting your party by banging on the doors, running into the room, and throwing candies at you. At this point I had decided that I didn't like the holiday. It was too freaky.

One of them sat on Cam's lap...

After Zwarte Petes had their time, there was a loud banging at the window right behind the couches we were sitting on. Keep in mind that it is snowing, dark, and we were on the third floor. Someone opened the curtains, and there was Sinterklaas, standing in the window. Of course, we had to let him in... As if this holiday could get any more strange.

Unfortunately, my camera died right as Sinterklaas was coming through the window, but I did get one picture of him on my phone when he came in the room.

I think that the Dutch kids hired our Zwarte Petes and Sinterklaas, but I'm still not sure who they are.

After that, I decided that I reeeeeeally don't enjoy Sinterklaas Day. I'll just stick to Santa... Oh, well. At least I got some nice soap from my secret Sinterklaas.