As I said in my last post , Dutch children get their presents , not from Santa Claus on the 25th , but from Sinterklaas on the evening of the 5th and one of you wanted to know more .
St Nicolaas , bishop of Myra in the 3rd century , had a reputation for the secret giving of gifts , maybe most notably to the daughters of a very poor man who couldn't give them doweries without which their futures were bleak . He is the patron saint of children and also of New Amsterdam , or New York .
Sometime in the 19th century , when Christmas was acquiring new traditions such as Christmas trees , Sinterklaas and his black page boy became the stars of the winter celebration in Holland and Belgium . They arrive in Holland from Spain every year in a steamboat and spend a week or two , before the feast , dropping chocolate coins in childrens' shoes , which are carefully left by the fire overnight , often with a carrot for the Saint's horse .
The page boy became Zwarte Piet , a mischevious helper in the bringing of presents to every child . He wears brightly coloured knickerbockers , a ruff , gold earings and a cap with a feather . Traditionally children who dressed up as him blacked their faces too , but that's becoming less common .
This year at work , we have a rather fetching wooden steamboat with the whole cast . Today , as we sat round the table eating a snack , the children took it in turns to pick out a figure and say something about it .
When we got to the Saint's horse , the little girl knew all about him . His name ( Americo ) , his preference for carrots and his colour but was stumped when it came to the markings on his coat .
And then it came to her .
So what were the darker marks ?
"Chickenpox !! "