November evening

Whilst our American friends are beginning to eye up Thanksgiving, here in the UK, it is still more than a month to Christmas. Yes, I've mentioned the C-word. Personally, I do not contemplate Christmas until December 6th.

Here in Lewis, Thanksgiving is also observed on the last Thursday in November. It usually means a day off school for the children, as some may be required to attend communions in church. Shops tend to close after lunch (except for supermarkets and the like). Communions are held every three months.

In Holland, where I am from, Thanksgiving is not a commonly observed religious festival. It is mentioned on the church calendar in September (much like the Harvest Festival in the Church of England, but without the display of harvested goodies). In the Roman Catholic parts of the country, south of the Great Rivers (Rhine, Waal and Maas), the festival of St Maarten / St Martin was held on November 11th.
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The above image shows St Maarten giving his cloak to a man without one.

The next festival on the Dutch calendar is Sinterklaas / St Nicholas, the eve of whose nameday is celebrated on December 5th. Yesterday, Sinterklaas arrived in Holland on a steamship, surrounded by a posse of helpers known as Black Peters. St Nicholas ostensibly arrives from Spain, and in the 8th century the Iberian peninsula was ruled by dark-skinned men from North Africa called the Moors. Officially, St Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra (modern-day Smyrna in Turkey) but his bones were spirited out of Turkey to Spain after his death.

Sinterklaas will bring a sack full of presents for all children in Holland (Belgium and Germany) on the steamboat, but will fill his sack with children who have been bad in the past year, to take back to Spain. Black Peter, a sort of bogeyman, will make sure it will be filled up to the brim. He will also assist Sinterklaas as he rides his white charger along the rooftops, to drop presents down the chimneys. Only children who leave a carrot for the horse in their shoe will wake up to find a present the next morning.
Sinterklaas, St Nicholas and Santa Claus are in fact one and the same. Sinterklaas will have disappeared on the morning of December 6th.