For all its brilliant, hypermodern buildings and splendid infrastructure of communication and transportation, Holland still always strikes me as being an old-fashioned country. Kids walk or bike to school, play soccer in the street, and run freely in the neighborhoods. People know their neighbors. Parents work forty hours, not sixty; one job, not two; and they never pass on a vacation. Multigenerational family gatherings are common. Often it feels like I’m back in some America of the 1950s.
At no time of year is this feeling stronger than in mid-November, when St. Nicholas arrives for his annual three-week visit. For whereas in my native land Santa Claus arrives by air, here Sinterklaas comes by steamboat, from Spain. Once docked, he proceeds by horse. Instead of efficiently dropping his gifts in one fell swoop, he deposits them one at a time in shoes set out in anticipation of his arrival (albeit Nikes and not wooden ones). Even the look of the man is old-fashioned, which makes sense since he is old – 1,734 years old, to be exact – and he’s a bishop (see the crozier and miter), which makes him a guardian of tradition.
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