|
|
Sinter Klaas: How Santa Started
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
Sinter Klaas and Black Peter, a Moor, arrive by steamboat. Sinter Klaas wears a bishop's robe, gloves and red neckwear and rides a white horse. Black Peter wears stockings, special pants, and a special jacket. He also carries a big red book, which contains records of how good or how bad children have been.
That's one version of the story. Here's another:
Dutch
children would leave their shoes in the chimney so Sinter
Klaas--riding from house to house on his white horse--can
drop presents down the chimney and into the shoes. Black
Peter, on the other hand, would go right down the chimneys
and leave the presents that way.
Either way, we can trace the name and the idea of Santa Claus back to Holland in the 1600s. Sinter Klaas became Sint Klaes, then Santa Claus.
Sponsor
Social Studies
for Kids
copyright 2002-9,
David White
