40 Fun Facts About Christmas in the Netherlands

Dutch children are told that Sinterklaas sails north each November from his home in which warm country?

Spain may have entered the story through Bari, the Italian city holding the saint's relics, which later belonged to the Spanish Kingdom of Naples.

Instead of hanging up a stocking, what do Dutch children set by the fireplace for Sinterklaas to fill overnight?

A shoe is set out, in modern homes often beside a radiator or a door, and by morning it holds candy or a small present.

Which American city, founded as a Dutch colonial town, is credited with turning Sinterklaas into Santa Claus?

New York is where John Pintard's 1810 pamphlet urged making Saint Nicholas the city's patron saint and printed an old Dutch Sinterklaas poem.

Sinterklaas traditionally gives each Dutch child a large chocolate version of what personal detail?

Their own initial arrives in solid chocolate, and makers thin the wide letters so a W holds no more chocolate than an I.

Which kind of structure in the Dutch town of IJsselstein is lit every December as a giant Christmas tree?

A broadcast tower, the 367-metre Gerbrandy Tower, has worn the lights each winter since 1992, and Guinness named it the tallest Christmas tree in 1998.

Dutch workers get a public holiday on 26 December called tweede kerstdag, a name that translates as what?

Second Christmas Day follows eerste kerstdag, 'first Christmas day', on the 25th, and the Netherlands treats both as public holidays.

At gourmetten, a favourite Dutch Christmas dinner, how does each guest at the table cook small portions of food?

In tiny individual pans heated at the table, everyone fries meat, fish or vegetables; two chefs brought the idea over from Switzerland in the late 1970s.

Which Queen song usually tops the Top 2000, the Dutch radio countdown that runs from Christmas to New Year's Eve?

Bohemian Rhapsody won the first listener vote in 1999 and has lost the top spot in only a handful of years since.

On 5 December, each Dutch Sinterklaas gift traditionally comes with what handwritten extra about the recipient?

A humorous poem comes with each present, usually teasing the receiver about well-known bad habits.

Which deep-fried dough balls, dusted with powdered sugar, do the Dutch traditionally eat on New Year's Eve?

Oliebollen means 'oil spheres', and the earliest known recipe for their forerunner appears in a Dutch cookbook of 1667.

Saint Nicholas, the bishop behind Sinterklaas, served at Myra, an ancient town in which present-day country?

Turkey holds the ruins of Myra, where the Greek bishop served in the 4th century; an expedition from Bari in Italy seized part of his remains in 1087.

Sinterklaas's television horse Ozosnel, who took over from Amerigo in 2019, has a name that means what?

Oh so fast echoes a passage in a well-known Sinterklaas song, and the horse arrived when Amerigo was said to have been pensioned off.

In the Dutch region of Twente, Christmas is announced by blowing which instrument made from a split tree trunk?

A horn, the midwinterhoorn, was traditionally hung in a well so the wet wood swelled and sealed its seams, and it sounds from Advent until Epiphany.

Unlike German stollen, where it is optional, the Dutch Christmas loaf kerststol always contains which sweet filling?

Almond paste is the must-have, and a German baker in the Dutch capital is said to have made the loaf popular with newspaper adverts from 1870.

Which Dutch painter's 17th-century canvas 'The Feast of Saint Nicholas' shows a sobbing boy left without presents?

Jan Steen set the scene at home on 5 December: a little girl clutches her new doll while one brother laughs at the other's tears.

In the Dutch radio charity drive Serious Request, held the week before Christmas, where are three DJs locked up?

In a glass house on a city square the DJs live on air around the clock for donations; the first one went up in Utrecht in 2004.

Gouda's December candlelight festival centres on a tall Christmas tree given yearly by a sister city in which country?

Norway's town of Kongsberg sends the tree, and Gouda's candlelit festival, first held in 1956, is the oldest of its kind in the Netherlands.

Dutch kerstkransjes are small biscuits often hung in the Christmas tree; their name comes from which shape?

A wreath is the shape, and the little rings are baked as biscuits with sugar pearls, moulded in chocolate or made from meringue.

An 1850 picture book by teacher Jan Schenkman is credited with first showing Sinterklaas arriving aboard what?

A steamboat was an exciting modern invention in 1850, and Schenkman's book also introduced a song about its arrival that became a Dutch standard.

Sinterklaas, unlike Santa in his floppy cap, wears which red headdress to match his cape and ruby ring?

A mitre shows that he is a bishop, and he also carries a gold-coloured crosier, a ceremonial shepherd's staff with a curled top.

The helpers of Sinterklaas often appear on Dutch television with smudged faces, explained as soot from what?

Chimneys are how the helpers are said to deliver the gifts, and the smudged figures are known as roetveegpieten, 'soot-smudge Petes'.

Saint Nicholas, the saint behind Sinterklaas, is the patron saint of which Dutch city, where a basilica bears his name?

Amsterdam has Saint Nicholas as patron of both the city and its basilica, even though the city's shield shows three St Andrew's crosses.

In which country is the horse of Sinterklaas named Slecht Weer Vandaag, a phrase meaning 'bad weather today'?

Belgium also hands out the presents later: children there wait until the morning of 6 December.

Folklorists including Jacob Grimm compared Sinterklaas's rooftop rides to the Wild Hunt led by which Germanic god?

Odin, known to continental Germanic peoples as Wodan, was said to ride the eight-legged horse Sleipnir through the air with his two ravens.

Which spiced Dutch biscuit, a Sinterklaas favourite, is shaped in carved moulds and sold abroad as windmill cookies?

Speculaas owes its flavour to cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, which Dutch traders shipped from Asia in bulk from the 17th century.

How do the helpers of Sinterklaas traditionally hand out kruidnoten, small spiced cookies, at his arrival parade?

Thrown into the crowd was the old custom, but over hygiene worries helpers at many parades now press a handful into each child's hand instead.

What are decemberzegels, a seasonal product sold across the Netherlands every winter since 1987?

Discounted postage stamps cut the price of sending mail of up to 50 grams within the Netherlands in December and the first days of January.

What is a kerstpakket, which many Dutch employers give to every member of staff each December?

A hamper of gifts usually holds luxury foods plus one lasting present, and the custom grew out of farmers feeding their servants at Christmas.

Het Sinterklaasjournaal, a Dutch children's series aired every year since 2001, follows the saint in what format?

A news bulletin, entirely made up, reports each day on what Sinterklaas and his helpers get up to during their stay in the Netherlands.

The Dutch city of Deventer dresses its oldest streets in Victorian style each December to honour which novelist?

Charles Dickens characters by the hundred, Scrooge and Oliver Twist among them, are played by volunteers on the weekend before Christmas.

The Dutch town of Valkenburg is known for holding its winter Christmas markets in what unusual setting?

Underground caves, in fact former marl quarries that are largely man-made, host the markets; one of them was rebuilt as the catacombs of Rome.

What do thousands of people do together at the Dutch beach resort of Scheveningen every New Year's Day?

They plunge into the sea in a mass New Year's dive, most wearing the orange winter caps handed out by the food brand that sponsors it.

Who delivers the annual Christmas Day speech on Dutch television and is personally the main author of the text?

The monarch writes the Christmas speech largely alone, unlike the Speech from the Throne, although ministers remain responsible for every public statement.

Which vegetable do Dutch children leave out overnight as a snack for the white horse that Sinterklaas rides?

A carrot is the classic offering, though some children put out hay or sugar cubes instead, with a bowl of water nearby.

Dutch Sinterklaas presents are often disguised in funny homemade wrapping known by which word borrowed from French?

Surprise is what the Dutch call a present creatively disguised in an unusual or personalised way before it is handed over on 5 December.

Sinterklaas makes his official Dutch arrival on the first Saturday after 11 November, the feast of which saint?

St Martin's Day sets the date, and the televised arrival is staged in a different Dutch port each year.

Which Protestant group banned Saint Nicholas celebrations in the Dutch provinces that had revolted against Philip II?

Calvinists outlawed the feast, yet street markets and fairs lived on, with impersonators of the saint dressed in plain red clothes.

Which fruit is a traditional Sinterklaas treat for Dutch children, given alongside chocolate coins and sugar animals?

Mandarin oranges echo an old link: a Dutch poem printed in 1810 already had the saint setting off to fetch oranges and pomegranates.

In carbidschieten, a noisy New Year's Eve custom in parts of the Netherlands, what farm container becomes a cannon?

A milk churn is loaded with damp calcium carbide and closed with its lid or a ball, which the exploding gas fires tens of metres away.

The oudejaarsconference, shown on Dutch television around New Year's Eve since 1969, is what kind of performance?

Cabaret looking back on the past year is the heart of it, performed by different comedians each year.