Ah, Thanksgiving… I can’t believe it has already been here and passed. It snuck up on me, really. And with it, the thought that I wouldn’t be home to spend the day gorging myself on select delicacies prepared by aunts and unwilling uncles till I was fuller than the oven and fridge had been not two hours before, and until some random game of football whisked me off to the dreamland only a Thanksgiving dinner can take you to.
This was the first real moment of true, inescapable homesickness I have felt since I left 3 and a half months ago. I mean, there have been little instances when I felt a twinge of longing to be at home, sitting comfortably in my parents’ living room, watching some wildcat football and eating chili, but the moment would pass quicker than it just took to explain it. But yesterday, when I woke for class in the morning, something felt a little different. Like this chapter of my life was starting to close just as I really realized it was beginning.
The Dutch, obviously, do not celebrate Thanksgiving, however, around this time of the year, December 5th to be exact, they celebrate a slightly tweaked version of Christmas which I was privy to recently.
The celebration of Sinterklaas is hundreds of years old, and based on numerous factors concerning Dutch History. It is similar to Christmas in that there is a Santa Claus figure, Saint Nicholas. But unlike our jolly “bowl full of jelly” Chris Kringle, Sinterklaas is actually quite skinny, and could probably pass as a Catholic Bishop with a flair for fashion and bright colors. His helpers, not elves, mind you, are normal sized people with black faces.
Imagine my confusion when, having no prior knowledge of this holiday, I biked to the grocery store about a week ago and saw white teenagers with black face paint on, giving candy out to children while some delusional dude who thought he was the Pope gave out gifts. The whole scene baffled me until I got home and asked one of my Dutch friends what in the hell was going on…
He explained the story of Sinterklaas, and my mind was appeased for a bit. I am all for weird holiday traditions whose meaning is not quite clear due to generations of change and adaptation, but this one, frankly, struck me as a little bit weird. I mean, a fake Pope, who lives in Spain, and travels with a posse of black people, and who, if a child is bad one year, puts said child in a bag, takes a switch and beats the tar out of him? Really? And besides all that, those pseudo-elves scared the hell out of me.
Even now, when I see them in the grocery store, tending to little child and spreading general cheer to all, even then, I am scared of them. I really don’t know what’s weirder, that “6 to 8” Caucasians can paint their faces black and imitate an African without a civil rights group getting upset, or that I am scared of them. I guess that is just another of the cultural differences between the two countries. I have to believe that if this holiday was celebrated in America, there would be some serious lawsuits involved.
But, alas, to each his own. Sinterklaas is a big deal here, and as such I am willing to ignore the oddity of it and just enjoy it. Besides, it isn’t as if America doesn’t have really weird celebrations and holiday traditions (see: “Black Friday”, or the overall concept of “Thanksgiving”). So I will attempt to enjoy myself and have a happy/merry Sinterklaas, and I hope you do the same.
P.S.- For more info on Sinterklaas, check out this video, it’s great and I think explains it better than I did. And it’s pretty hilarious.
Loading ...
family, wildcat football…blah blah blah
GRIZZLY!!!!!!!!!!!! thats what ur missing out on