If you visit the canal-lined streets of Amsterdam, Utrecht, or Haarlem during the winter holiday season, you quickly discover that the Netherlands does not celebrate just one December gift-giving holiday—it celebrates two completely distinct seasons separated by twenty days! In Dutch culture, the playful noise, the steaming bowls of spiced cookies, the white horse riding across rooftops, and the main unwrapping of children’s presents happen on the evening of December fifth for Sinterklaasavond, leaving December twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth (Eerste en Tweede Kerstdag—”First and Second Christmas Day”) as a peaceful, candlelit two-day festival of music, glowing trees, and tabletop family feasts.
Sinterklaas Arrives by Steamboat From Spain (Mid-November to December 5)
The direct historical ancestor of the American “Santa Claus” (a New Amsterdam Dutch pronunciation of Sinterklaas, short for Sint-Nicolaas / Saint Nicholas), the Dutch Sinterklaas does not live at the icy North Pole with elves and reindeer. Instead, according to nineteenth-century Dutch tradition codified in an 1850 children’s picture book by Amsterdam schoolteacher Jan Schenkman, Sinterklaas lives in sunny Madrid, Spain, and sails to the Netherlands every mid-November aboard a whistling steamboat (Pakjesboot 12) accompanied by his mischievous helpers, the Pieten (traditionally Zwarte Piet, and in modern Dutch cities increasingly updated to Roetveegpiet—”Soot-Smudged Pete” with chimney soot streaks on their cheeks) and his noble white horse, Ozosnel.
For three weeks between mid-November and December fifth, Dutch children place one of their shoes (de schoen zetten) by the fireplace or radiator before bed alongside a carrot or hay for Sinterklaas’s horse and a bowl of water, singing Sinterklaas songs and waking up to find their shoe filled with traditional Dutch holiday sweets:
- Kruidnoten and Pepernoten: Crunchy, bite-sized spiced gingerbread-style cookie buttons seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and cardamom (speculaaskruiden) that helpers toss by the handfuls.
- Chocolate Letters (Chocoladeletters): Every person in the Netherlands receives a large, heavy boxed bar of milk, dark, or white chocolate molded into the exact first initial of their first name!
- Banketstaaf: A flaky puff-pastry log stuffed with sweet almond paste.
Pakjesavond (December 5): Surprising Wrapping and Roasting Poems
The climax of Sinterklaas occurs on the evening of December fifth: Pakjesavond (“Presents Evening” / Sinterklaas Eve). Even among grown-up Dutch adults and office coworkers, you never simply hand someone a gift in a normal gift bag; you must create a Surprise accompanied by a Sinterklaasgedicht (Sinterklaas Poem):
- The Homemade “Surprise” Sculpture: If your cousin loves playing the guitar or always loses his keys, you spend evenings constructing a giant papier-mâché and cardboard guitar or giant key, hiding the actual small gift inside the sculpture (or inside a bucket of pudding or confetti!).
- The Teasing Rhyming Poem: Attached to every gift is a humorous, anonymous rhyming poem signed “From Sinterklaas” that gently roasts and teases the recipient about their funny mistakes, bad habits, or embarrassing moments from the past year—which the recipient must read aloud to the laughing family before unwrapping the present!
First and Second Christmas Day (December 25 & 26): Gourmetten and Kerststol
On the morning of December sixth, Sinterklaas sails back to Spain, and only then do most Dutch families put up their illuminated Christmas tree (Kerstboom) to usher in a tranquil, cozy (gezellig) Advent leading up to two official national public holidays: Eerste Kerstdag (December 25, First Christmas Day) and Tweede Kerstdag (December 26, Second Christmas Day).
Because all the toys and poems were already exchanged on December fifth, Dutch Christmas is remarkably free of commercial stress, focusing entirely on church services, concerts, ice skating, and two beloved culinary traditions:
- Kerststol at Christmas Breakfast: Both Christmas mornings begin with slices of Kerststol—an oval yeast bread packed with raisins, currants, candied citrus peel, and a rich log of sweet almond paste (amandelspijs) running right through the center of the loaf, sliced thick and spread with salted Dutch butter.
- “Gourmetten” at the Christmas Dinner Table: Ask almost any Dutch family what they are doing on First or Second Christmas night, and they will answer with one verb invented in the Netherlands in the 1970s: Gourmetten! Instead of one tired parent standing alone in the kitchen for six hours roasting a giant turkey, a long electric tabletop grill plate (the gourmetstel) is placed right in the center of the dining table along with tiny individual mini-skillets (pannetjes) for every guest and twenty small bowls of bite-sized marinated steaks, chicken, shrimp, sliced mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, melted raclette cheese, and pancake batter—allowing kids and grandparents alike to sit for four hours sizzling their own custom miniature courses together right at the table.
