Thirty-Six: Christmas, Dutch Style

The Netherlands are gearing up for Christmas. This means oliebollen and poffertje stands (yey!), lighting displays (yey! unless you're "green", in which case "booo!") and of course Sinterklaas and... Zwarte Piet. Last year Zwarte Piet totally freaked me out. I thought, "What??? How can this be OK?" There must be some sort of misunderstanding; I must be missing something.

Well, I've learned a bit more since last year's holiday season, and this year I'm thinking..... "WHAT??? How can this be OK???" Apparently I'm not missing anything. This is exactly what it looks like. And it's totally befuddling considering general cultural themes and policies. I can only stack this in the growing pile of evidence indicating that the Dutch are not so much liberal as they are practical. But this is a very touchy subject here; protests, death threats to protesters, etc. One camp says it's 'tradition' and therefore absolved of malfeasance. The other camp thinks the first camp is off their collective rocker.

In related news, researching the links contained herein has resulted in a 25-30% downtrend in my opinion of the Dutch...