It is usually not a free day [1], but St. Nicholas Day is widely celebrated in mainland Europe. It also served as inspiration for Santa Claus in the US. The details differ widely per country, but there are three overarching themes:

• There is a bishop-like figure, St. Nicholas.
• He usually has helpers.
• Good kids get presents, naughty kids get punished.

The story is that Bishop Nikolaos of Myra (15 March 270 — 6 December 343) had a reputation for secret gift-giving. Children would leave their shoes out overnight and the day after it would be filled with a small gift. The next 1000-1500 years are a bit sketchy but there was a bit of a gift-giving tradition around December 6th.

In most of Europe it is celebrated one way or the other. In Southern Germany and Austria Sankt Nikolaus is accompanied by Krampus, a beast-like figure. In Switzerland it is called Samichlaus and there are no beasts involved. Wikipedia has a summary of celebrations in different countries.

In the Netherlands

In the Netherlands Sinterklaas (a corruption of Sint Nicolaas, the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas) is celebrated on December 5th, not December 6th. The modern version was introduced in an illustrated children’s book written by a teacher. According to Wikipedia:

The modern tradition of Sinterklaas as a children’s feast was likely confirmed with the illustrated children’s book Sint-Nicolaas en zijn knecht (‘Saint Nicholas and his helper’), written in 1850 by the teacher Jan Schenkman (1806–1863). Some say he introduced the images of Sinterklaas‘ delivering presents by the chimney, riding over the roofs of houses on a grey horse, and arriving from Spain by steamboat, then an exciting modern invention. Perhaps building on the fact that Sint Nicholas historically is the patron saint of the sailors (many churches dedicated to him have been built near harbors), Schenkman could have been inspired by the Spanish customs and ideas about the saint when he portrayed him arriving via the water in his book. Schenkman introduced the song Zie ginds komt de stoomboot (“Look over yonder, the steamboat is arriving”), which is still popular in the Netherlands.
In Schenkman’s version, the medieval figures of the mock devil, which later changed to Oriental or Moorish helpers, was portrayed for the first time as black African and called Zwarte Piet (Black Peter). [2]

Since then a lot has changed. In the 19th century Sinterklaas had a large carrot-and-stick element. Good kids got presents and candy, naughty kids would get “the birching rod” (i.e. corporal punishment). For the worst kids there would be a single ticket to Spain. I guess the last thing was more scary back then than it is today. In the old days kids were actually afraid of Sinterklaas. Nowadays there are more presents and no punishments.

The role of Zwarte Piet also changed. It started out a bit like the Krampus in Germany: a scary figure. Remember that it wasn’t until the 1950’s that mass immigration of non-white people to the Netherlands started. Up until then the few colored people were considered a scary oddity. After the Second World War, and especially after television started to broadcast the arrival of Sinterklaas, the number of Zwarte Pieten increased. They have their own dedicated tasks that they usually screw up (for example, Route-finding Piet is never going to find the right route). Zwarte Piet transformed from a scary oddity to a clown-like figure. I expect Zwarte Piet will transform a bit more in the coming years…

Customs

A few weeks before December 5th Sinterklaas arrives from Spain. At night the kids can leave the shoes with a carrot (for the horse of Sinterklaas) near the chimney. The next morning they find some candy in it. [3]

Finally, december 5th is the gift-giving day. Young kids wait impatiently until the presents arrive. Older kids help making the presents, which are usually packaged in a humorous way (“surprises”) and accompanied with a small poem.

Sinterklaas really is the gift-giving day for families (parents + children) in the Netherlands. As the kids leave the house the celebration is discontinued, moved to the weekend before/after December 5th or moved to Christmas.

[1] The title of this post really should be ‘Why wasn’t I free last week?’ ↩

[2] I don’t know how it happened, but somehow the Bishop Nikolaos of Myra moved from Turkey to Spain. ↩

[3] My mom sometimes tells that at some point she almost got sick of eating all the carrots. ↩