Ho, ho, who are Sinterklaas and St. Nick?

HOLLAND — Sinterklaas delights the children of Holland every year with his visit for Sinterklaas Eve.

Holland's event, which began in the 1990s, is patterned after Dutch Sinterklaas celebrations and pays homage to Holland and Zeeland's Dutch immigrant roots, introducing the Dutch St. Nicholas to the next generation of children.

Sinterklaas, like Santa Claus, is a kindly, white-haired man who rewards children who have been good with gifts, but there are a few differences between the Dutch and American characters and the traditions that accompany them.

Sinterklaas season in the Netherlands starts in mid-November, with the arrival of Sinterklaas in one of the country's port cities. Sinterklaas rides a white horse, accompanied by his helpers, the jocular Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes) dressed as Renaissance-era court pages who distribute the candy. He is greeted with arrival parades in every city.

"(Sinterklaas's arrival) is broadcast all over the country," said Linda Karsten Kolk, a volunteer with the Zeeland Historical Society. "The people ring church bells and wave flags and sing songs as he comes past."

Sinterklaas traditions have become plagued with fights over the Black Petes in recent years, as a movement to "Kick Out Zwarte Piet" gained traction with its argument that Black Petes were racist caricatures of Black people. Black Pete is often depicted with blackface, black afro-style wigs and exaggerated red lips.

"There are the die-hards who say, 'It's our tradition, it has nothing to do with racism or slavery or colonialism, he's just our Piet.' And then there's actually a society, 'Kick Out Zwarte Piet,' because he's seen as a depiction of colonialism and racism," Kolk said.

"Some people say he's just a Moor, he's a descendant of the Moors, but there is always this power imbalance between St. Nicholas and Pete. St. Nicholas is the elegant, stately saint, and Pete is the naughty, mischievous servant."

In recent years, the compromise of many Sinterklaas events has been "Sooty Petes," whose faces are partially or completely streaked with black or grey ash said to be from going down the chimney to deliver presents to the children.

Kolk suspects the compromise has not left either side of the fight over Pete totally happy, but it continues to be the most popular way forward amid the controversy.

In Holland's own Sinterklaas parade, Petes have never been depicted with blackface.

Back at home, kids put out their shoes at night to receive the occasional gift from Sint — short for Sinterklaas — in the weeks leading up to the eve of St. Nicholas's feast day, Dec. 5, when most holiday presents are exchanged.

"Sinterklaas is by far the most popular festival (in the Netherlands)," said Holland resident Carol Myers. "And it is the primary gift-giving time."

"Sometimes it happens that there is a knock on the door and they'll see an arm that throws out candy into the house, and then the door is slammed shut and they go and look and there's a sack of presents," Kolk said.

The sack, which Pete is often seen carrying, is supposed to be big enough to carry a child back to Spain for a year of hard labor, the threat used to scare children into good behavior.

Usually Sinterklaas rides a white horse down Eighth Street in Holland, although not this year. A smaller procession near the Holland Civic Center took place instead.

For Paul Millen, who played Sinterklaas for this year's Sinterklaas Eve celebration, the most important thing is keeping the magic alive for the kids.

"Their eyes are so big and their smiles are so big," Millen said. "This is the best time of the year for me."

Millen says he stays away from the darker side of Sinterklaas, like the birch switches Dutch Petes often carry to punish bad children, or the threat of being taken away in a sack. Instead, he tries to make Christmas about fulfilling kids' dreams and reassuring them of their goodness.

"I listen to them and reassure them that they have been good," Millen said. "I don't want to convey to any of them that they are bad children."

Though Sinterklaas is no longer considered a religious figure to the Dutch, he still dresses like a bishop, harkening back to St. Nicholas of Myra, a fourth century Christian saint born in Patara in Asia Minor, in modern-day Turkey.

St. Nicholas became of the most popular saints in medieval and Renaissance Europe, Myers explained, and his feast day, Dec. 6, was a day of celebration.

"People loved St. Nicholas because of the way he lived," said Myers, who is director of the St. Nicholas Center, a website and educational center dedicated to "discovering the truth about Santa Claus."

"He truly lived loving God and loving his neighbor, and he's one of the few saints of this era that became a saint not because of the way he died — he wasn't a martyr — but because of the quality of his life and his care for the people."

"He was the son of a wealthy family," explained Kolk. "His parents died young, and he gave up his life of luxury for a life of good deeds and devoted himself to prayer."

Legends serve to color in that life of good deeds, as very little of Nicholas's life can be confirmed by historians.

The story that continues to influence Christmas traditions today is St. Nicholas's gift of dowries for three poor young women. Without the money for dowries, required for marriage, their father was preparing to sell the women into slavery and prostitution, but St. Nicholas secretly in the night tossed bags of gold through a window, where, it is said, they landed in stockings or shoes left out by the fire to dry.

"St. Nicholas liked to do his giving in secret so that people would give thanks to God, and not to him," Myers said.

Today, we see St. Nicholas's mysterious gift-giving by night reflected in Santa Claus's midnight journeys down chimneys the night before Christmas, and also in the emphasis on charitable giving during the holiday season.

Other stories tell of Nicholas miraculously saving the people of Myra from famine with a miraculously replenishing supply of wheat, saving three innocent men from execution, restoring to life three theological students who had been butchered by an innkeeper and calming the waves of a storm at sea, saving frightened sailors.

"In many ways he's a model for contemporary living," Myers said of St. Nicholas. "The different stories relate very much to social issues today. St. Nicholas is about more than sentimental gift-giving. Saving the young women from slavery and prostitution speaks to the issue of human trafficking today, providing food in famine speaks to hunger and the need to see that people are fed and his saving innocents from execution speaks to mass incarceration and capital punishment.

"St. Nicholas defended the poor and vulnerable, and he is a model for us to live beyond ourselves in ways that make it possible for other people to live with justice and mercy."

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens.