Sinterklaas (Dutch Santaclaus)

[elovna]

In Holland since ages the most celebrated Saint. A few days ago I discovered that he must have been Armenian!

http://www.op.org/san-nicola/basilica/Snicola.htm

[gamavor]

Aghtchik,

 

You are going too fast! Now is time to make some research on famous Dutch tulips!

 

Regards and Cheers!

[elovna]

The tulips need time to grow also Gamavor. By the time the tourists can enjoy the tulip fields the tulip planters are enjoying their holiday.

Groetjes,
Aghtchik.

P.S. This reminds me of the topic about Tourism as a solution for Armenia. I am not going to suggest that Armenia should make tulip fields, but if Sinterklaas really is Hye it could be an idea to use that as an opportunity get some Dutch attention for Armenia. I am already imagining it... a documentary on Dutch national TV called "The cradle of Sinterklaas."

[MJ]

There are vast tulip fields in Armenia, btw. For example in Tsakhgadzor.

[MJ]

Why not Greek?

[elovna]

Because I want him to be Armenian.

[elovna]

So now I need to not only start research on the origine of Sinterklaas but also the tulip !!!!!!!!

Tulip

http://www.dutchflowerlink.nl/images/gallery_planten/5002tulipa.jpg
Tulipa Liliaceae, herbaceous plant, bulb

The tulip is a flower with a rich history. People see it as a typical Dutch flower, even as the National flower. The roots of the tulip we can find in the East, probably in Iran or Turky. There are many publications about the tulip. In 1554 in Western Europe first articles we can find about it. Around 1560 the first tulips came to flowering in Europe. Around 1570 the tulip arrived in the Netherlands. We think because of the famous botanist Carolus Clusius. In the Renaissance gardens tulips became a beloved plant and became a symbol of status. Also during the Baroque the tulip was popular. In gardens many varieties shown their exciting flowers and colors. Around 1600 - 1637 in the Netherlands the rich became crazy about tulips and a complete madness started, we called it in Dutch tulpenmania. The bulbs were sold for absurd high prices. The most expensive bulb cost in that time dlf 4600,- (to the value of money in that time).

In the era of the King of France, Lodewic the fourtienth, tulips are used by the ladies as decoration of their beautiful dresses. Fresh tulips create an abundant and precious decoration on the decolleté of the dress. The tulip is used in Holland in many decorative ways. We see them as wall stone on some houses, as art price, as fence decoration, as doorknob, as logo, in painting- and in sculpturing.

The tulip can have very easy new varieties and because of this the number of species increased quickly. Also the colors and the variation in shapes increased.
Tulips grow very good in the garden and some species are to use for a wild garden too. The best time to plant is in autumn, October and November. They come about 8 cm. deep in the soil and about 10 cm from each other. If we want to keep the bulbs in the soil we must plant them deeper, about 15 till 20 cm. Tulips will flower by nature in the Dutch gardens in April.

Tulips are also suitable for flowering in the house or in a glass house. In fact we can let them flower all 12 month of the year. With the knowledge of today this is easy.

As cut flower the tulip is very successful and many love to have them in a vase or flower arrangement. Many varieties are available. The vase life is between 5 and 7 days. A clean vase, clean water and a special tulip Chrysal improves the quality and beauty of the tulip.

Groetjes.

[MJ]

OK. Granted.

[nairi]

I'm glad there's already a thread on this, because I was about to start one. Yes, the Low Lands (Germany, Belgium and Holland) have finished celebrating the famous Sinterklaas festivities for the year. I thought I'd share one of my host country's most popular holidays, and the way it has spread to become one the world's most famous celebrations.

 

Elly, he WAS born in Anatolia! The funny thing is that I was talking to a Turk about this time last year who tried to convince me that Sinterklaas was of Turkish descent.

 

The site you posted was out of date btw, so I posted a new one (probably not the best, but well, it's something...).

 

Nairi

[nairi]

The Real Saint Nicholas

 

Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of just about everything. He is the national saint of Russia and Greece and churches named after him number in the thousands - more than 400 in Great Britain alone. He is the patron saint of judges, murderers, pawnbrokers, thieves, merchants, paupers, scholars, sailors, bakers, travelers, maidens and poor children. He is known as the friend and protector of all those in trouble.

 

Saint Nicholas was born in the Middle East about 350 miles northwest of Bethlehem in the fourth century. He grew up to become the bishop of Myra (now Kale), his hometown, Lycia, near the coast of what is now Turkey. Legends tell of his love for children, his kindness and the miracles he brought about.

 

Perhaps the most famous story of all tells how he helped three unfortunate young sisters who all had suitors but had no dowries because their father, a poor nobleman, could not raise the money. So they could not marry.

 

Now the bishop Nicholas was a shy man and did not like to give money directly , so he thought of a way to give it anonymously. When the first daughter was ready to marry, the good bishop tossed a bag of gold into the house at night. Later, when the second daughter prepared to marry, she too received a mysterious bag of gold. When the third daughter prepared to marry, the poor nobleman was determined to find out who had been so generous. So he kept watch and saw the bishop drop another bag of gold into the house. It has been said that Saint Nicholas climbed on the roof and dropped the third bag of gold down the chimney where it landed in a stocking hung to dry, giving us a reason to hang up Christmas stockings today. When the father saw what had happened, Nicholas begged him to keep the secret, but, of course, the news got out. From then on, whenever anyone received an unexpected gift, they thanked Nicholas.

 

Six hundred years later, the Russian Emperor Vladimir visited Constantinople and heard all the wonderful stories about Bishop Nicholas and decided to make him the patron saint of Russia. The stories even spread to the Laplands - to the people of the reindeer sleds.

 

The three bags of gold Nicholas gave the sisters made him the focus of merchants in northern Italy. Statutes and pictures had shown him holding the three bags and when taken as the patron saint of the merchants, the bags became gold balls, representing money lenders and today, pawnbrokers.

 

The anniversary of Nicholas' death, December 6th, either 345 A.D. or 352 A.D., is so close to Christmas that, in many countries, the two merged. But in Germany and the Netherlands, the two remain separate.  

   

Santa Discovers America

 

Europeans first brought Saint Nicholas to America in the fifteenth century. On his first voyage, Columbus named a port in Haiti for Saint Nicholas; and the Spaniards originally called Jackson, Florida, "Saint Nicholas Ferry". When the Dutch emigrated to America they took their beloved saint with them. At the prow of the ship in which they sailed to the New World in 1630 was a figure of Saint Nicholas. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and held a long -stemmed Dutch pipe. But at the same time the Reformation was fiercely dividing their homeland. A ban was placed on the celebration of Saint Nicholas Eve, forbidding passing out of cookies and cakes to children, a custom that had been as entrenched as our own trick-or-treating on Halloween. Saint Nicholas never regained his wide popularity and virtually disappeared as 17th century Dutch New Amsterdam was becoming 18th century English New York. With their arrival, the Dutch Sinterklaas did become forerunner for Santa Claus in the United States. German immigrants brought with them a positive attitude toward Christmas. They brought their custom of setting out hay in the barnyard for the Christchild's donkey on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day finding the basket filled with snits (dried apple slices), choosets (candy), walnuts and gingerbread. As the Germans intermarried with the English, the dialect "Christ-kindle,: from the proper German Christkindlein, became "Kristkingle" or "Kriss-kingle." Eventually the "Kriss Kringle" replaced the Christchild figure entirely, a substitute akin to Santa Claus. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, Kriss Kringle was the most common Christmas bearer in Pennsylvania.

 

Pelznickel (Saint Nicholas in furs), another Old World German Christmas servant, was better known as "Belsnickel. He had been portrayed as someone out to have some fun by scaring children half to death, before changing character and giving them sweets. In more southern states of the America, Belsnickel was said to kidnap bad children and carry them away to who knows where. Children's imaginations called up fates worse than anything the adults might suggest. He rattles at windows with a horsewhip and wrapped around the wrist of the first child to reach for scattered candy without his permission. Gradually "Belsnickeling" became the custom of going from door to door collecting food and money for the poor and survived well into the present century.

 

Jon Kankus is similar to Belsnickeling in theme and location.

 

Children in old Czechoslovakia believed Svaty Mikulas was let down from heaven on a golden cord by an angel. When he arrived on Christmas, children rushed to the table to say their prayers. If they did well, Svaty Mikulas told the angel to give the children presents.  

 

Santa USA

 

Once the Dutch brought Saint Nicholas to America, he was gradually transformed from an austere bishop to a jolly old elf. First Washington Irving described the saint as a plump and jolly old Dutchman in his comic History of New York. It provided the first literary description of Saint Nicholas to appear in America. It poked fun at the Dutch founders of New York and contained numerous references to the Dutch patron saint. In later editions of his work, Irving gave this account of Saint Nicholas bringing gifts:

 

“and lo, the good St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees, in that self-same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children....And he lit his pipe by the fire and sat himself down and smoked....And when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hatband, and laying his finger beside his nose, gave the astonished VanKortlandt a very significant look; then mounting his wagon, he returned over the treetops and disappeared.”

 

Irving's book was a best seller of the day and after its publication in 1809, the Saint Nicholas legend traveled fast. At the first anniversary for it, John Pintard and his friends at the New York Historical Society passed out a broadside he'd commissioned with his own money. It included a poem, "Sancte Claus Goed Heyligman!" ("Santa Claus, Good Holy Man!"). It was a wood engraving by Alexander Anderson and the first known picture of the saint to be mad in America.

 

In 1822 Saint Nicholas' American transformation was given a more definitive description by a professor named Doctor Clement Clarke Moore. Moore, the father of several children, presented his family with a Christmas first: the famous poem, A Visit From Saint Nicholas, first published in 1823. The poem quickly became popular around the United States. Unlike the European Saint Nicholas who was feared by naughty children, Clement Moore inadvertently Americanized the Old World Saint Nicholas, turning him into "jolly Saint Nick, a plump, happy-go-lucky elf with a sleigh full of toys and eight flying reindeer.

 

Through the years, many publishers have offered Moore's poem as an illustrated book for children. The first one was published in 1848 by Henry M. Onderdonk, a New York printer and bookseller, and a friend of Clement Moore. C. Boyd did eight wood engravings depicting sleeping children, stockings hanging, the Christmas elf driving his miniature team through streets and over rooftops of a quaint old-fashioned Dutch New York, and other familiar scenes to every illustrated edition since. These were put together in an eight-page pamphlet prepared as "a present for good little boys and girls." Only two know copies of that paperback publication have survived.

 

In 1860 Thomas Nast immortalized Santa Claus with an illustration for Harper's Weekly. The Gregory Company of New York contacted him with an offer to do the illustrations for a book of Christmas poems, including Clement Moore's. Acquiring a copy, Nast read it repeatedly, making mental sketches of the character. He wanted a warm, jolly old elf. The first Santa Claus appeared as a small part of a large illustration titled "A Christmas Furlough" in the December 26, 1863 issue and each Christmas following, Nast set aside his regular news and political coverage to a Santa Claus drawing. He provided twenty -three years of Santa Claus until the paper changed from a leading newsweekly into a magazine for late nineteenth-century homemakers.

 

Saint Nicholas' attire has gone through as many changes as he has. In New York City in 1865, at midnight on Christmas night, it was reported that Saint Nick appeared, at ball given in his honor, in "buckskin boots of large proportions; his pants were of a fawn color, with a blue stripe. A vest of scarlet, with large brass buttons, encircled a truly aldermanic paunch. A coat of dark brown, over which was thrown an ample cloak of scarlet and gold completed his attire. He was laden with toys - they hung from his arms, round his neck, his waist, and his back was heavily freighted. Round the room he tripped good humoredly, chuckling to himself as he distributed his stock and trade to all. The figure seemed to have elicited from Robert Walter Weir's painting and drawing at the Military Academy of West Point.

 

Clement Moore had clad in him in fur, common dress for 18th century gentlemen. In 1884, when Santa made his entrance at the Five Points Mission School, eight hundred wide eyed children saw him "wrapped in a great coat of Siberian wolf skins, over which his long beard hung down to his knees!"

 

But Santa Claus was often shown dressed in green clothes, or blue or black. When one Clement Moore's daughters did a calligraphy of version of her father's famous poem as a Christmas gift to her husband, inspite of her father's words, she dressed Saint Nicholas in a long green coat.

 

Santa Around the World!

 

Santa is indeed a very popular figure around the world. To Christians in the African Republic of Ghana, Father Christmas comes from the jungle. In Hawaii he comes by boat. On the Nerang River in Australia he rides water skis, wears a white beard and red bathing trunks. In Brazil Grandpapa Indian, Vovo Indo, brings gifts. In China, Santa Claus is called Dun Che Lao Ren, which means Christmas Old Man. He brings presents to good children. Being a culturally diverse and worldly fellow, Santa has many interpretations:

 

"Ghosts of the field" cleared the way for Saint Nicholas in parts of the Alps. Behind them came a man wearing a goat's head, and a masked demon with a birch switch.

 

In Germany's Berchtesgaden district, twelve young men dressed in straw and wearing animal masks danced along after Saint Nicholas, ringing cowbells. After gifts were given as each home, the masked men drove the young people out and beat them, or pretended to do so. This was symbolic punishment for having misbehaved. It had also been a part of a pagan ritual that was thought to ensure crops the following year.

 

The German Saint Nicholas also comes with a helper. He has different names in different parts of Germany: Knecht Ruprecht or Krampus in southern German; Pelzebock in the northwestern part of the country; and Hans Muff in the Rhineland. Like Black Peter, he carries a sack on his back and a rod in his hand. The helper was a frightening being given to ogre-like growls, quite the opposite of Saint Nicholas' shining goodness.

 

Swedish children wait eagerly for Jultomten, a gnome whose sleigh is drawn by the Julbocker, the goats of the Thor, the god of thunder. He dresses in red and carries a bulging sack on his back.

 

In Denmark the gift bringer, Julemanden, also carries a sack and is drawn by reindeer. Elves called Juul Nisse are said to come from the attic, where they live, to help Julemanden. Children put a saucer of milk or rice pudding out for them in the attic and hope to find it empty in the morning.

 

In Poland the children's gifts are said to come from the stars and in Hungary angels bring them.

 

In Syria children's gifts come from the youngest camel on January 6th, which is Three Kings Day. In Spanish speaking countries such as Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina , Brazil, the Philippines and Spain, the Three Kings, themselves, give the gifts to the children.

 

Italian children also receive gifts on Three Kings Day, but the gift bearer is La Befana. La Befana refused to go to Bethlehem with the wise men when they passed her door because she had not finished her sweeping. Now she goes from place to place hoping that some day she will find the Christ Child. Everywhere she goes, she leaves a little gift.

 

In Russia the same ageless wanderer is called Baboushka. She gave the wise men the wrong directions and on the eve of Three Kings Day she wanders from house to house, peering into the faces of children and leaving gifts. Russia also has Grandfather Frost.

 

English children wait for Father Christmas, known to their ancestors as Christmas itself. In France gifts are also brought by Father Christmas, Pre Noel, or the Christ Child himself. In Austria and Switzerland the Christkindl bears gifts. In some towns Christkindl is a beautiful girl-angel sent down from heaven to give gifts.

 

http://christmas.com/pe/1375

 

How the Dutchies celebrate Sinterklaas:

 

Born of a wealthy family, Nicholas was brought up as a devout Christian. When his parents died of an epidemic, he distributed his wealth among the poor and became a priest. Later he became Archbishop of Myra, and it is from here that the fame of his good deeds began to spread across the Mediterranean. Desperate sailors who called upon the Good Bishop to calm stormy seas were heard; prison walls crumbled when victims of persecution prayed to him. He saved young children from the butcher’s knife and dropped dowries into the shoes of penniless maidens. Over time, St. Nicholas became the patron saint of sailors and merchants, and especially of children. After his death, the cult of St. Nicholas spread rapidly via southern Italy throughout the rest of the Mediterranean and eventually to coastal towns along the Atlantic and the North Sea. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Holland built no fewer than 23 churches dedicated to St. Nicholas, many of which are still standing. Amsterdam adopted St. Nicholas as its patron saint, and Rome decreed that December 6th, the anniversary of his death, should be his official Feast Day.

 

St. Nicholas’ strong influence in the Low Countries - an area heavily engaged in trade and navigation - was primarily due to his role as patron of sailors and merchants. However, his fame as protector of children soon took precedence. In the 14th century, choir boys of St. Nicholas churches were given some money and the day off on December 6th. Somewhat later, the pupils of convent schools would be rewarded or punished by a monk dressed up as the Good Bishop, with his long white beard, his red mantle and mitre (bishop’s hat) and his golden crosier (bishop’s staff) - just as he is still presented today.

 

All Dutch children know that Sinterklaas (the name is a corruption of "Sint Nikolaas") lives in Spain. Exactly why he does remains a mystery, but that is what all the old songs and nursery rhymes say. Whatever the case may be, in Spain he spends most of the year recording the behaviour of all children in a big red book, while his helper Black Peter stocks up on presents for next December 5th. In the first weeks of November, Sinterklaas gets on his white horse, Peter ("Piet") swings a huge sack full of gifts over his shoulder, and the three of them board a steamship headed for the Netherlands. Around mid-November they arrive in a harbour town - a different one every year - where they are formally greeted by the Mayor and a delegation of citizens. Their parade through town is watched live on television by the whole country and marks the beginning of the "Sinterklaas season".

 

The old bishop and his helpmate are suddenly everywhere at once. At night they ride across Holland’s’ rooftops and Sinterklaas listens through the chimneys to check on the children’s behaviour. Piet jumps down the chimney flues and makes sure that the carrot or hay the children have left for the horse in their shoes by the fireplace is exchanged for a small gift or some candy. During the day, Sinterklaas and Piet are even busier, visiting schools, hospitals, department stores, restaurants, offices and many private homes. Piet rings doorbells, scatters sweets through the slightly opened doors and leaves basketfuls of presents by the front door. How do they manage to be all over the Netherlands at once? This is thanks to the so-called "hulp-Sinterklazen", or Sinterklaas helpers, who dress up like the bishop and Black Peter and help them perform their duties. Children who become wise to these simultaneous "Sint-sightings" are told that since Sinterklaas cannot indeed be in two places at once, he gets a little help from his uncanonized friends.

 

The Dutch are busy too - shopping for, and more importantly, making presents. Tradition demands that all packages be camouflaged in some imaginative way, and that every gift be accompanied by a fitting poem. This is the essence of Sinterklaas: lots of fun on a day when people are not only allowed, but expected, to make fun of each other in a friendly way. Children, parents, teachers, employers and employees, friends and co-workers tease each other and make fun of each others’ habits and mannerisms.

 

Another part of the fun is how presents are hidden or disguised. Recipients often have to go on a treasure hunt all over the house, aided by hints, to look for them. They must be prepared to dig their gifts out of the potato bin, to find them in a jello pudding, in a glove filled with wet sand, in some crazy dummy or doll. Working hard for your presents and working even harder to think up other peoples’ presents and get them ready is what the fun is all about.

 

The original poem accompanying each present is another old custom and a particularly challenging one. Here the author has a field day with his subject (the recipient of the gift). Foibles, love interests, embarrassing incidents, funny habits and well-kept secrets are all fair game. The recipient, who is the butt of the joke, has to open his/her package in public and read the poem aloud amid general hilarity. The real giver is supposed to remain anonymous because all presents technically come from Sinterklaas, and recipients say out loud "Thank you, Sinterklaas!", even if they no longer believe in him. Towards December 5th, St. Nicholas poems pop up everywhere in the Netherlands: in the press, in school, at work and in both Houses of Parliament.

 

On the day of the 5th, most places of business close a bit earlier than normal. The Dutch head home to a table laden with the same traditional sweets and baked goods eaten for St. Nicholas as shown in the 17th-century paintings of the Old Masters. Large chocolate letters - the first initial of each person present - serve as place settings. They share the table along with large gingerbread men and women known as "lovers" (see link above). A basket filled with mysterious packages stands close by and scissors are at hand. Early in the evening sweets are eaten while those gathered take turns unwrapping their gifts and reading their poems out loud so that everyone can enjoy the impact of the surprise. The emphasis is on originality and personal effort rather than the commercial value of the gift, which is one reason why Sinterklaas is such a delightful event for young and old alike.

 

http://www.minbuza.nl