Take on Zwarte Piet

Every year on December 5th, I'm reminded of my childhood.   Growing up in Holland, this day was our Christmas.  We still celebrated December 25th but kept that one mostly about religious traditions and family gatherers, but December 5th was the kid's holiday because that is when we would all get our presents.

But for weeks before this day, the kids in my neighborhood and I were on edge because Sinterklaas had arrived in the harbor a few weeks earlier on a large barge from Spain.   He would stay in Holland for two or three weeks visiting kids and preparing to deliver presents.    Unlike the American Santa Claus, Sinterklaas was a much less jolly soul, with his entire persona based on Saint Nicholas.   He was a skinny tall man with a big pope hat and if you've ever seen a kid cry when he had to sit on Santa's lap in the mall, you should have seen us in Holland when we had to even come close to the old man.  Santa Claus was jolly and fat with a bunch of friendly reindeer, Sinterklaas was regal and sophisticated riding on a pure white-horse.  

But all those perceptions are still secondary to the helpers of each man.   Santa has elves who make toys up in the North Pole and help him during picture day when overtired kids are forced to take one cute picture for their parent's Christmas card, Sinterklaas had Zwarte Piet's, which for no better way of describing it were indentured servants.   Zwarte Piet is directly translated as Black Pete and these guys would come along with the regal saint on the boat and then run havoc over the entire land for three weeks.  They would break into your house to make sure the kids were behaving, often pelting them with candy.. they would sneak through windows and open doors and all Dutch Kids were told that if they behaved they wouldn't get coal in their stocking but instead would be taken away by the Black Pete's and brought to Africa until next year.  

Today, Dutch people defend Zwarte Piet as a fun child character and will claim that their faces are black because of the soot of the chimneys but I remember as a kid knowing that these were black people from Africa, ones we were very afraid of.   Just look at the facial features and you know that these were supposed to be African people, regardless of what they tell you today, I know that the Zwarte Piets of my youth all had big red lips, curly hair and tons of jewelry, they almost looked like circus clowns.    And regardless of what they tell you, the imagery of an old white guy dressed like a plantation owner with thousands of dark skinned 'helpers' coming onto shore is something that no Dutch person should ever forget.

with that said, it was a great holiday