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@jenna
Opened up The Island at the Center of the World this morning — story of original Dutch settlement in Manhattan which I’ve been reading slowly this month — and this Sinterklaas explainer happened to be on the page: tldr Dutch holiday taken over by the English in the early Americas to appease the non-Dutch children. Not mentioned here are all the pre-christian roots of deep winter holidays and ofc “merry” def from early non-christian traditions so find myself drawn to it and happy holidays is classic lame wokewashing🎄 > As the town expanded and developed its seasonal routines and rituals, those of the dominant culture tended to prevail. We can imagine how the colony’s most iconic legacy got established: every year in early December children of non-Dutch families in New Amsterdam had to have pouted at being left out of something good. As in the home country, the Dutch children would break out in song: Saint Nicholas, good holy man, Put on your best coat, Then gallop to Amsterdam…
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@jenna
> And on the sixth of the month, the saint’s feast day, they would wake to find that he had left treats for them. This, surely, was unbearable; among the English, the French, the German, the Swedish families of Manhattan, pressure was brought to bear on parents, and the Dutch tradition was adopted, and, later, pushed forward a couple of weeks to align with the more generally observed festival of Christmas. So Sinterklaas began his American odyssey.
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