In the Netherlands Sinterklaas arrives in his steamboat from Spain on the 17th of November. There are many songs about his arrival. After he arrives with his white horse and his helpers he goes all over the country and is televised as well. Normally when Sinterklaas arrives in Amsterdam, he begins his tour at the Dam square. All the children gather in the square and Sinterklaas shakes their hands and his helpers throw lots of sweets into the crowd.

There are lots of stories about how Zwarte Piet, the compantion of Sinterklaas, got his dark skin. There are Germanic legends dating back hundreds and hundreds of years. For example, on the western side of Europe where many of the important festivities began, in the last half of the last month of the year - December, people celebrated the so called Zonnewende feesten. People put gifts under the chimneys for their god Wodan. In this way they hoped to get fertility in the spring. Wodan's son Oel collected the gifts and in return he threw seeds through the chimneys. This made his face totally black.

Another story says that western Germanic tribes had a god called Odin. He was always in the company of the black ravens called Higinn and Munnin. These black ravens had to look through the chimneys to see if people were behaving in a decent fashion or behaving badly. They reported to the God Odin. Nowadays in the Netherlands it is extremely similar because the concept of somebody looking through the chimney to see how people are behaving and people offering presents is part of the Sinterklaas story.

Some Germanic tribes believed that if you could see the moon in the sky during the morning it was a symbol for Sinterklaas. Zwarte Piet with his black face was a symbol of the moon. When Christianity came to Western Europe these festivities remained and they were given a Christian name. The Zonnewende feesten were combined into Sinterklaas and Father Christmas.

The Dutch were a sea-faring nation and in the seventeenth century they met Moorish people from Spain and North Africa. But Piet had been a part of the Sinterklaas tradition for centuries before the Dutch ever saw dark-skinned people. Piet always wears typical clothes from the seventeenth century - a velvet jacket, a cap with colored feathers and a white starched collar.

It often frightens little children to know that Sinterklaas knows about how they are behaving themselves. Zwarte Piet makes jokes with the children and calms them down. Many Sinterklaas feasts would have ended with grief and tears if Zwarte Piet had not turned the serious words of Sinterklaas into more light comments about the children's behavior.

There are lots of stories about how Zwarte Piet got his dark skin. Some involve chimneys, the moon or meetings with the Moors from Spain.