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Before becoming a father, I never really gave much thought to family traditions, perhaps in part because the ones I grew up with sometimes appeared to be disconnected from the culture outside our home at the time. Since Oliver’s birth, however, Mimi and I have often talked about what aspects of our respective backgrounds we would like to pass on to him to give him a sense of his cultural heritage.

When my parents immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands with my two older brothers (before I was born), one of the traditions they maintained was Sinterklaas, or St. Nicholas, celebrated in the evening on Dec. 5th, the eve of the saint’s day. If we happened to be visiting relatives in the Netherlands in early December, we would experience it in its traditional form, but while we lived in Canada and then later in the U.K., our observances were on a much more modest scale.

Despite the similarity of names and that Sinterklaas is an obvious ancestor to the way we think of Santa Claus, I’ve always been aware that Dutch people who live outside Holland feel their tradition overshadowed by the greater focus on Dec. 25th. In early Dec., it’s traditional to exchange chocolate letters (the first letter of the recipient’s name) and indulge in chewy gingerbread figures and marzipan-filled pastry, but as the Dutch communities in Canada and the U.K. are relatively small and fairly disparate, we never really got beyond buying these imported goodies for the 5th and eating them among ourselves. Santa, on the other hand, conjured up such immense images and practices that eventually my brothers and I too easily succumbed to what our peers did.

To get a sense of Sinterklaas (and prepare myself for the future questions our already-inquisitive Oliver is likely to ask), I looked into the history. Sinterklaas’ name and image gave rise to Santa Claus in North America in the 17th century, specifically in the colony of New Netherland and the city of New Amsterdam, now better known as New York, which may also be why Santa in North America is notably different than, say, Father Christmas in the U.K. Nicholas was the bishop of Myra in Lycia (now in modern Turkey), and his death in 342 A.D. came to be commemorated on the sixth day of Dec.

The saint’s remains were interred in Bari, Italy, and starting in the 16th century, when the Netherlands and parts of Italy were under Spanish rule, Dutch people regarded Spain as the starting point when Sinterklaas came to visit Dutch towns and villages. The holiday now celebrated in the Netherlands is the result of centuries of tradition, with a special emphasis of having children place their shoes near the chimney at night to receive Sinterklaas’ gifts and leaving a carrot for his horse.

When Sinterklaas makes an appearance today, he is dressed in red bishop’s robes and a mitre and carries a staff. The holy man has a long white beard and makes his entrance on a white horse and in the company of a jovial servant known as Zwarte Piet (Black Peter), who distributes treats and threatens to stuff naughty children into a sack. Actually, the saint originally had just one helper, but when they were helping to organize the first Sinterklaas after the liberation of the Netherlands in the Second World War, Canadian troops apparently gave the saint multiple assistants (the more the merrier, right?) and he has been accompanied by many Zwarte Pieten ever since.

Although the resemblance between Sinterklaas and Santa Claus is unmistakable, I was always conscious of the differences, particularly those that were inexplicable. But when I think about the equally inexplicable aspects to Santa Claus – why would an overweight man enter a house through a fairly narrow chimney when he could more easily come through the door or window? – I take comfort that all cultural traditions have their quirks. At least with Sinterklaas, the assumption has always been that it was Zwarte Piet, usually a fairly thin guy, who would swoop down the chimney (and be blackened by the soot, hence his name) while Sint could keep his robes impeccable.

When we found out that there were some Sinterklaas events around town, we decided we should check them out with Oliver. I actually find it rather amazing that there are actually enough Dutch people in the Greater Toronto area to have such organized events, but when we went to see Sinterklaas at a Scarborough hotel, I was even more amazed by the crowd that appeared an hour before Sint. At least a dozen children and parents even spread out their coats in the space between the chairs and Sint’s throne to claim choice spots. Anticipating an unpleasant crush vying for a moment near the mitre and robes, we decided to decamp early.

Our second foray into Dutch Christmas traditions was markedly more pleasant if a bit sedate. At the Bata Shoe Museum, the Dutch group organized an afternoon of clog painting, and then we could take the clog home to place by the chimney on the evening of the 5th.

Oliver customizes a clog for Oma (photo by Mimi Choi)On the face of it, we thought it might be too structured for two-year-old Oliver. But as he sat in my lap brushing paint and only occasionally mixing the red on the brush into the tub of yellow paint, Mimi and I were pleasantly surprised how content Oliver seemed. The other kids at our table were generally older and in some cases they seemed both skilled with their brushes as well as familiar with this activity. Perhaps it’s an annual thing with them, and I think next year we will definitely consider it again.

But of course Oliver’s serenity was fleeting. Even with the seductive promise of hot chocolate and speculaas cookies, another Dutch tradition, Oliver needed to move his legs. He was briefly mollified with the challenge of walking down the staircase near the room where the clog painting was held, but as soon as he discovered the elevator, he couldn’t get enough of pushing the buttons and checking out each floor. The Bata Shoe Museum has four floors of exhibition space, but because it’s small and there weren’t too many visitors on the Sunday we were there, we were able to let Oliver basically get his way. Occasionally we were able to persuade him to venture into the exhibition rooms themselves, and since all the displays were behind secure glass, he could examine what caught his interest with little risk to the precious shoes. What caught his interest the most? Admittedly, it was the twinkling lights in some of the darkened rooms, followed quickly by a insistent demand to ride the elevators again.

So as much as we intended a brief taste of a Dutch tradition, I think we’ll have to wait until next year or longer to get beyond shiny lights and cool elevators. But it’s good to know that the Bata Shoe Museum will always have those qualities. As kid-friendly as the museum seems, Mimi reported from the women’s washroom that the diaper-changing options are a bit more disappointing. Although the facilities are ample, she noted, there is no flip-down table, although there is sufficient space on the wall opposite the sinks for one. The sinks, by the way, are too close together to allow a baby to be comfortably laid down. We were fortunate that Oliver didn’t need a diaper change during our visit.

Oliver’s clog is now dry and ready to be filled with carrots. But it is the evening of the 5th, and he’s already in bed by the time we realize we haven’t gone through the motions of the tradition. Oh well. We’ll try again next year, and maybe the clog will be better appreciated by Oma.

www.batashoemuseum.ca

Nearest subway stops:

St. George (at Bloor St. W., north side) - the St. George entrance has escalators, but the Bedford entrance has elevators at the east side of the platform that go to street level

Spadina (at Bloor St. W., north side) - the main Spadina entrance (east side of Spadina) has escalators and elevators

Parking near the Bata Shoe Museum- street parking on St. George, Huron, Spadina, Washington Ave., and other nearby streets

- lots on St. George and Spadina