5th December 2016

[silvs_advent_dw]

Sinterklaas



Sinterklaas or Sint-Nicolaas is a mythical figure with legendary, historical and folkloric origins based on Saint Nicholas. Other names for the figure include De Sint ("The Saint"), De Goedheiligman ("The Good Holy Man"), and De Goede Sint ("The Good Saint") in Dutch; Saint-Nicolas in French; Sinteklaas in Frisian; and Kleeschen and Zinniklos in Luxembourgish.
Sinterklaas is celebrated annually with the giving of gifts on 5 December, the night before Saint Nicholas Day in the Northern Netherlands and on the morning of 6 December, Saint Nicholas Day itself, in the (Roman Catholic) southern provinces, Belgium, Luxembourg and Northern France. He is the primary source of the popular Christmas icon of Santa Claus.

Read more at Wikipedia

Comments

[amruniel.livejournal.com]

Or "Nikolaus"/"Nikolo" in Austria, who is oftentimes accompanied by the "Krampus", a kind of devil who stuffs the bad kids into some kind of coal-bucket he carries on his back, effectively kidnapping them (or -the nicer version- gives coal and whips made of willow branches to the bad kids)

:D

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I think I've posted about that character in previous years! He doesn't sound very nice ;-)

[amruniel.livejournal.com]

Not particularly nice, no, but rather effective at keeping the kid's on their best behaviour :D

And I have to say that around here -in a rather urban environment- a rather harmless version of the Krampus is being used. In the more rural parts of Austria there is still the tradition of doing a "Perchtenlauf" -which is essentially a parade of a bunch of young men dressed up in devil's costumes, who actually oftentimes get in fistfights with spectators- which looks something like that:





And that's REALLY creepy *shudders*

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

Did LJ eat your comment? I got notified of it but there is nothing here now. O_O

Oh wait, LJ thinks it's spam. I maybe need to switch the SPAM filter off in this journal. *goes searching*

Okay, I switched off the spam filter but the comment still won't to show up. Not sure what the stupid goat is playing at.

[amruniel.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm

I can see it displayed up there, but that's hardly surprising since I wrote it :D
At least it doesn't seem like the goat competely ate it... it exists somewhere in the wide, weird world of LJ ...

[silvs-advent.livejournal.com]

Finally resolved it!

[amruniel.livejournal.com]

Ha!

YAY!

In that case - ignore my previous comment ;)

[gattodoro.livejournal.com]

Dutch families who celebrate Sinterklaas are traditionally given their initials made out of chocolate - I vividly remember going on work trips to Den Haag with a long shopping list of initials to buy for Expat colleagues (and having to hunt for the rarer ones!).

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

And knowing you I'm sure you found all of them!

[ireth06.livejournal.com]

Like gattodoro says, we give people these:

And this is what we eat: Pepernoten:

Of kruidnoten:

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

Those chocolate letters look very yummy!

[nverland]

Fascinating!

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting tradition but over here in the UK we have no 6th December tradition at all.

[rifleman-s.livejournal.com]

He seems to be a very "European" figure - but one that has never really "caught on" in Britain . . .

But the story is always fascinating!

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

It actually surprises me that given how good we are at importing overseas traditions, we don't have this one!

[artemisallen.livejournal.com]

Yes I too have Dutch friends living over here who celebrate Sinterklaas with their family - they all live over here - and it does sound fun.

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

I love the sound of the chocolate letters!

[ranmaru.livejournal.com]

Neat, I never knew all of that.

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

It's always interesting to find different customs, even in countries which are really close together.

[laura-iskra.livejournal.com]

thanks for the infos, I love reading about how the different cultures joined to create something now shared by all..

[silvan-lady.livejournal.com]

It's fascinating to see the similarities and the differences :-)