There’s nowt so queer as Christmas traditions

Until the age of seventeen Christmas for me had always been celebrated in the English tradition. Lots of paper-hatted relatives crammed around the extended dining table, piling their plates high with turkey, three sorts of potatoes, sprouts, carrots and parsnips plus cranberry sauce and mum’s famous stuffing, commenting on the moistness of the turkey and bartering for the last chipolata. In 1969 there was a sixpence to be searched for in the rich brandy-soaked Christmas pud which by 1987 had become a pound coin - inflation I guess. Christmas day meant the Queen’s Speech, Top of the Pops and some old chestnut of a movie like the Wizard of Oz or the Sound of Music, followed by parlour games and a mega game of cards for pennies.

As far as I was concerned, this was how everyone spent Christmas and, until I ventured abroad to live, this was my only frame of reference. My first foreign Christmas experience was when visiting my sister, who was living in Tenerife. I was amused to be eating cold chicken drumsticks on the beach on Christmas Eve and bemused that on Christmas day there was not a turkey lunch to be had but a special dinner which didn’t start until about 10 pm. Despite the comfortable 18 degree celsius temperature, most of the restaurant diners turned up in full length fur coats, and though the food was exquisite, it just didn’t feel like Christmas to me.

French Christmas tradition is also very food based and I loved the richness of the reveillon meal and the delicious bûche de Noël. When I was teaching there I took a sample of Christmas pudding into school for my students to try and they HATED it! It looked like chocolate to them so when it tasted of rich, dried fruit they were inconsolable.

I think for me Holland was the biggest surprise of all. Still relatively blinkered by the notion that English Christmas traditions were universal, I brought a Dutch friend home to the UK for Christmas. He was amazed that we ate a piping hot feast at two o’clock in the afternoon then snoozed in front of the telly for most of the remainder of the day. If the pub was only open at lunchtime and closed in the evening, why did we eat at lunchtime and then have nothing to do and nowhere to go in the evening? Good point. He liked the Christmas crackers but was mortified about wearing a coloured paper hat during lunch and had a similar reaction to that of my French students when it came to the Christmas pudding.

OK so let’s try it his way. The following year I tried a Dutch-style Christmas starting with Sinterklaas on 5th of December. Here are my observations as an outsider, looking in.

Santa vv Sinterklaas – The image of modern Santa Claus was invented by the Coca-Cola company and depicts a fat, jolly chap, with a red drinker’s face and a suit to match who shouts ho-ho-ho, keeps reindeer, and has a tendency to get stuck in your chimney. Unlike our round figured, jovial Santa Claus, Sinterklaas is a tall, thin, austere-looking figure dressed like in Archbishop’s robes who will fill your shoes with chocolate if you’re good but, if you are bad, he will beat you with a stick, stuff you in a sack and kidnap you to Spain. Personally, I’d rather spend time with Santa.

Zwarte Piet – no-one knows officially how many Piets there are. American writer and comedian David Sedaris wrote an article called 6 to 8 Black Men which is a funny view of an outsider hearing about the Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet tradition for the first time. I recommend a listen. Go to You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCUHTDrca4s

Pakjes avond. This is a great fun night for kids as it is the night when they receive their Christmas presents, left on the doorstep by Sinterklaas (assuming they’ve been good!). A firm knock on the door followed by a handful of pepernoten and sweets thrown into the entrance hall is the sign that he’s been. If you have a naughty child I assume another sign that “he’s been” would be that you were missing a member of your family, but I have never had that confirmed. The tradition for 5th of December for adults is to draw a name out of a hat and craft a “surprise” for that person in the form of something they are known for. All I will say is that you have to be good at rhyming poetry and papier maché. In the past I have received a lot of gifts disguised in papier maché wine bottles. What can this mean?

Coming to the Christmas celebration, there is no real Dutch traditional Christmas dinner as far as I have been able to ascertain. Some see the traditional dinner to be game or ‘wild’, others have mentioned rabbit as being traditional. Many go out for dinner and some get out the frightful Gourmet set, which involves inviting folk round for dinner then basically asking them to cook it themselves. Bits of unseasoned meat to fry on a hotplate served with various mayonnaise dips to add flavour. Spartan. Dull. No hats. Are we having fun yet?

It’s natural to prefer what you are used to so it comes as no surprise that even after 24 years of living in Holland, having learnt the language, and integrated myself in Dutch society in almost every other way, when it comes to Christmas, I import my turkey-basting, Christmas crackered, paper hatted, jolly Santa’d version of the festive season and do it all right here in Amsterdam – without a drop of mayonnaise!