"Dat is niet Kerst papier!" "That is not Christmas paper!"

Living in a foreign country is quite the interesting experience, and education about the host country frequently comes in unexpected ways.

I moved to The Netherlands in December of 2005, but I still feel clueless about many things in the culture around me.

I was quite proud of myself this year, informing our housemate (his first year as an expat) about the whole Sinterklaas and Zwaart Piet stuff, as I covered in the previous post. But I was only partially getting a grip on Dutch Christmas customs, as a recent customer informed me.

A few days before December 5 a customer made a purchase that she wanted gift wrapped. I reached for our holiday paper, shown above left. "Do you have Christmas paper?" she asked. "Yes, I said, holding it closer to her, "we have this, would you like red or blue?" She looked unsatisfied. "Maar, dat is niet Kerst papier; dat is Sinterklaas papier." ("But, that is not Christmas paper, that is Sinterklaas paper.")

The light dawned. Oooooooooooh. So, it's not all one big season from the arrival of Sinterklaas at the end of November to December 25. No no no. I had that all wrong. Instead...Sinterklaas arrives and all the zwaart piets dance around and give the kids goodies and all that. The kids put their shoes out on December 5 (and a carrot for the horse!) and they wake up to shoes filled with kruidnoten and chocolate coins and candy; along with presents from friends and family.

zwaart piet dolls with Quila

After December 6, the whole Sinterklaas bit is over. Anything smacking of Sinterklaas and zwaart Piet is taken down or discounted and the second phase of the holiday, Christmas, begins. My housemate ran out and grabbed a bunch of zwaart piet dolls, which my cat Quila found fun to pose with. These dolls have blue eyes, which is exactly what you see when scores of Dutch people dress as "Black Peter."

Until December 6 Christmas trees are not even available. But exactly on December 6th, BOOM they appeared on every street corner. Now the focus is on the traditional story of the birth of Christ, and only now are the lights appearing in the windows and so on. However, although it's not part of traditional Dutch culture, Santa Claus' image is now making an appearance here, but this is a distinct character, he is NOT Sinterklaas. We were completely wrong to have a small Christmas tree with ornament display before December 6 (forehead smack). Okay, it's been five years, time to catch on. Makes me wonder what other glaring cultural norms I am blind to.
Typical "Sinterklaas" (not Christmas!) candy, which we are now shoving down the throats of unsuspecting La Naranja customers, because if they don't eat this stuff we know we will, and we are desperately trying to watch our girlish figures over the holidays. In fact, we will discount anything in the shop ten percent if you eat some our candy. Please. Keep Bilderdijkstraat beautiful, and remove these sweets from our reach.

And, now, officially, Merry Christmas, everybody! Let the festivities begin!

Sinterklaas in Amsterdam

As I was on my way to the Sinterklaas arrival party in Leidseplein last month I spotted children's cutouts in a window. The figure on the left is "Zwarte Piet," Sinterklaas' fun-loving Moorish helper. In the Netherlands, legend has it that Sinterklaas (the figure in the red hat) arrives from his home in Spain by boat, after which he disembarks astride his white horse and rides through the land, dispersing goodies and gifts. One Santa for the whole country arrives in Amsterdam (lucky me!) and a full scale parade with floats and tons of Zwarte Piets ensues from the ship to Leidseplein, where Sinterklaas addresses the crowd, spreading good cheer to the rain-soaked masses.




Dutch kids are really, really cute and happy children as a rule, and this event brought those qualities out. It almost made me teary, looking at their earnest little faces. Many of them dressed up either as Sinterklaas or one of his helpers, Zwarte Piet (Black Peter). The adults dressed as Zwarte Piets all put on brown face makeup to look like Moors. This can be startling to Americans sensitive to certain images due to our history of racial conflict, but I assure you this is not construed as or interpreted as offensive, here.



The Zwarte Piets dance around, goof off, insert themselves in people's photographs and hand out goodies in advance of Sinterklaas' appearance.

The man himself!!


Sinterklaas riding up to Leidseplein, led by Zwarte Piet


Little kids in the typical flouncy beret type hat, representing santa's helper, Zwarte Piet.

Zwaart Piets onderweg thuis

I saw Sinterklaas arrive in Leidseplein today! More photos soon, but this was the best of the bunch, two Zwaart Petes rollerblading home from the event.

Thanks, GVB

While I'm reviewing the winter and discovering my lost cache of December pics, I'd like to say "dank u wel" to GVB, the local transport organization, for giving the tram riders little chocolate santas around Christmas time. Now, that's the kind of thing that will make you fall in love with a city. Awwwww. Thank you, GVB!

The little sign in Dutch above the candy reads: We wish you a pleasant journey.

Merry Christmas Eve from La Naranja!!!

Hello everybody! We're hunkered down for a long day, Christmas Eve here at La Naranja. For some reason, we decided to stay open until 8 pm today, so if you are having a wander down Bilderdijkstraat, stop on in and have a piece of honey candy from Las Alpujarras! We'll be closed tomorrow. Have a lovely Christmas, everyone.

Busy December!!!

Hi there everybody!!! Wow what a busy December it's been so far. Our winter display is up and we are busy with promotion at La Naranja and, just to make things interesting, we decided to move house at this time as well.


We have a new hood! After four lovely years in Oud West's yuppified Helmbersbuurt, living right smack dab next to Restaurant Blue Pepper, we have picked up our (way too many) belongings and headed southeast to a funky and friendly area on the edge of De Pijp. We are a stone's throw from both the Amstel river and the end of the Albert Cuyp market. I can't wait to explore!!!

Helmersbuurt Christmas Day 2008

The Dutch really don't do the Christmas light thing much at all. A stroll around my neighborhood on Christmas day didn't take me by many festive decorations. Way in the background you can one exception, a little tree done up with lights, outside.

Unique holiday arrangement.

This was just about impossible to take a picture of, but I was pleased with this unusual pairing of holiday flora. I put mistletoe in with lillies, and the result was a nice clean arrangement that still gave a nod to the season. If you do this, think ahead with your arrangment so you won't be fussing with it much, coz those dang white berries tumble off at the slightest tug.