Part 39: A Dutch Halloween

In Holland, and Europe for that matter, they don't celebrate Halloween. I know, I know... How dare they? But, when you really think about the pretense for Halloween, most Europeans are saying "how dare they".

However, since every kid has to have a reason to dress up and ask for candy, the Dutch have declared Sint Maarten's Day as a national holiday.

Sint Maarten was born in "modern-day Hungary", joined the Roman army, rose through the ranks, and was knighted by the Roman Emperor. Aside from being a good soldier, he also found a calling to help the poor, the homeless, and under-priveledged children. He soon dropped the army to become a monk. As a monk he traveled Europe and started a half dozen monestaries.

I don't know why, but today, Holland has adopted Sint Maaren as the patron of all things "almost halloween". On every November 11, kids will walk the neighborhoods, with pails ready for candy, and sing to the neighbors for a treat.

In our neighboorhood the local band also got together and paraded right in front of our house. As you can imagine it was a cool night because the kids were super excited to get into the candy.

We weren't ready for this one though. When the kids started coming by the house and singing, we had to scramble to the cabinets for something. We ended up finding a few boxes of theatre candy, some lifesavers, and a few packages of Oreos. Most parents seemed ok with the hodge-podge of offerings, but then other parents immediately took the candy away when they left. Oh well, we tried.

It was a cool "improptu" evening.