Skip to main content

Sint

The snow is falling and every year around this time (it seems it is starting sooner and sooner) people begin to see pictures of a fat man with a white beard in a red suit. The Netherlands too have such a man but he is slightly different than the one we are thinking of.

Sinterklaas is a traditional Winter holiday figure in the Netherlands. He is celebrated annually on Saint Nicholas' eve (5 December). Originally, the feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of Amsterdam, children and sailors. Today, since celebrating saints' feast days is an uncommon phenomenon in the traditionally Protestant Netherlands, the Dutch celebrate at the 5th of December, his reputed birthday. He is the basis of the mythical holiday figure of Santa Claus in the United States.

Sinterklaas is his usual name. The more formal name is Sint Nicolaas or Sint Nikolaas. He is also known as Goedheiligman or simply Sint. The Dutch write Sinterklaas. (looks alot like Santa Claus doesn't it) So the Dutch don't December 25th as anything special; no pine trees and no connection with Jesus. Keyword from the last paragraph - Mythical - holiday figure. Makes you wonder what his connection with Jesus' birthday is anyway.

Now for the fun part. I found a Dutch horror movie that came out about St. Nicholas. Here's the synopsis thanks to imdb.com ---A horror film that depicts St. Nicholas as a murderous bishop who kidnaps and murders children when there is a full moon on December 5. --- See, supposedly he was born on December 6th but this movie goes on the premise that really he was murdered on the 6th! So he's out to get revenge (of course). Here is the trailer in Dutch with English subtitles. Trailer What a neat sounding language.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ray - Forest Boy

Remember around a month ago when the news story hit about Ray the Forest Boy who randomly showed up one day in Berlin, Germany? Well I forgot to post this but it has been found out who Ray the 'Forest Boy' actually is. 20 yr old Robin van Helsum of Hengelo Netherlands (100 miles east of Amsterdam). What allowed the police to finally determine who 'Ray' was? His stepmother. She recognized his picture on the news. He went missing 9 months ago. Now that he has been exposed as a hoax and not the Forest Boy who had been living in the woods for 5 years; Robin may face stiff fines and penalties for the extra police time and work put into his case which could cost as much as $40,000. 'Ray' originally walked into Berlin claiming he had been walking for 5 days after spending 5 years living out of a tent in the 'wild' where he had buried his father. One Berlin police officer said that there were things right from the start that did not match to his story. Lik...

de Vries, Hans de Vries. Almost.

In 1967 THE James Bond (Sean Connery) decided to step away from the world of James Bond films. EOS studios thus had to find a replacement. It came down to 5 men. 2 Brits, an American, a Australian, and a Dutchman. John Richardson, Anthony Rogers, Robert Campbell, George Lazenby, and Hans de Vries. None of those names ring a bell? George Lazenby won the part for the 6th Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A movie that has been lauded both as the worst and one of the best Bond films in the franchise. If you haven't seen it, you should. It was the Bond film that 'Breaks the Fourth Wall', Bond gets married, wears a kilt, and goes skiing. But the reason for this post is instead of this; (Yes, THAT is James Bond) We could of had this. Improvement? Probably not. He looks a wee bit angry. Plus, no one watches OHMSS anyway. So, did de Vries have a movie career after Bond? Ha, no. The only notable movie rolls I can find for him were pre bond. And that was ...

2012 Olympic Update - 2 Medals + Links

The Olympics began with a bang (or was it Bond) last Friday night. The Dutch entered the stadium wearing their traditional Orange. Gota love those pants. Their uniforms actually won best dressed on this yahoo blog . It also seems the Dutch Women's Field Hockey team has gained worldwide attention before even taking the field to defend their Beijing Gold. Both for their play on the field and their uniforms. An article about it here  Yahoo . And a photo gallery here . Wow. The medals began coming in on Sunday for the Dutch when the Women's 4x100 Free Style Swimming Relay team secured a silver medal. Falling just behind Australia and beating team USA for second place. Followed soon after by Marianne Vos finally winning her elusive Olympic Gold Medal in Olympic Road Race Cycling. Here's a picture of her crossing the finish line (that is one excited and exhausted looking person) and one of her accepting her medal.  As of Tuesday, the Dutch are in 16 place for to...