Dank u, Sinterklaasje
by digby
Being a military brat of a certain age,I spent much of my childhood in various post-war Imperial outposts, and my earliest memories come from the time we spent in Holland. I learned to speak Dutch right along with English (later forgotten unfortunately) and for quite a few years after we came back to the states my parents would pay me a dime to sing Sinterklaas, kapoentje for their friends. Via #everyoneontheinternet, this David Sedaris telling of the Dutch Christmas story is hilarious:
And yeah, the tradition of “Black Pete” is hideously racist and they should get rid of it:
[Sinterklaasje] used to be accompanied by a jester symbolising the devil. But in the mid-1800s, when the Dutch were major players in the global slave trade, this changed.
Nice.
