A blog for the IndieWeb Carnival theme: cycles and fluctuations. What does autumn look like in the Netherlands?

There’s of course quite a few things that are relatively universal in the autumn season; in September most schools start their new year, some kind of “last harvest festival” is celebrated and people are preparing for colder months.

But there are also some things that are more specific to the Netherlands and while I was reading Alex’s original post about wishing people would write in their native language, they prompted me that it would actually be interesting to write about what — I think — people might not know about the Netherlands.

September

Our Septembers are often still quite warm, a late-summer if you will. Like some of our European neighbours, we believe a lot in work-life balance and so it’s not weird for people to still take vacation days in September.

So while summer holidays are extended, there’s something else that actually gets pulled forward. More and more each year, to the chagrin of some.

And those are ‘pepernoten’ and ‘kruidnoten’. These are small spiced cookies that are traditionally eaten during the Sinterklaas festivities in early December. At least that’s what the Wiki would say, but they’re basically eaten from September onwards in the Netherlands. But I’ll guess we’ll talk more about Sinterklaas in the December section.

October

Not much special really happens in October. But I’ve been noticing a bit of a trend where people somewhat celebrate Halloween. Me included, to be fair.

It’s mostly a consumerism kind of thing, with shops selling decorations and candy. I think with the days getting shorter, setting clocks back an hour and thus exasperating the feeling of darkness, people like to decorate and festify things a bit. We did have some kids ringing our doorbell, even though we were not participating, and I also saw some carved pumpkins in the neighbourhood. We don’t have the 11ft skeletons yet, but perhaps in the bigger cities.. 🤔

The candy is also a little bit of a marketing thing, because a couple of days after Halloween, some people will celebrate ‘Sint Maarten’ on November 11th. This is a tradition where children go door to door with lanterns, singing songs and asking for candy.

Sint Maarten is a Catholic tradition that celebrates Saint Martin of Tours, known for his act of kindness in sharing his cloak with a beggar. Catholicism isn’t that big, but in the same way people like festivities, they like to celebrate Sint Maarten as well.

November

Winter is getting closer, the sunny days become less frequent and while it’s probably not snowing yet, the humidity, wetness, coldness and darkness are in full force.

You’ll start seeing Christmas fairy lights in windows, gardens and on balconies. While these are mostly meant for Christmas, they’re also helpful for during Sint Maarten and Sinterklaas festivities. It just adds coziness, or “gezelligheid” as we say in Dutch.

The 11th of November is quite interesting. As mentioned before it’s Sint Maarten, but it’s also the start of Carnaval. What is even funnier to me, is that the same area that celebrates carnaval is also the most Catholic, but they barely celebrate Sint Maarten.

Carnaval parades in The Netherlands (source: nu.nl, optochtenkalender.nl)

Carnaval is quite a big festivity in the southern provinces of the Netherlands, where people dress up in costumes, attend parades, and participate in various festivities, mostly drinking. I’m no expert in it, so you might want find another blog about it.

The other thing that happens mid-November is that Sinterklaas ‘arrives’ in the Netherlands. Sinterklaas is a traditional holiday figure based on Saint Nicholas, celebrated on December 5th. (In Belgium it’s celebrated on December 6th.)

Sinterklaas arrives by boat from ‘Spain’ and each year a different Dutch city hosts the arrival event, which is televised by our public broadcaster. There’s also a special ‘Sinterklaasjournaal’ (Sinterklaas news) TV program that airs and is enjoyed by many kids. Sometimes they’re watching this in school with the class, in the lower grades.

One of the ceremonies of Sinterklaas is that kids are allowed to put their shoe next to the fireplace (or nowadays a radiator or a frontdoor) with a carrot or hay for Sinterklaas’s horse, a drawing or letter for Sinterklaas or the ‘Pieten’, his helpers. The idea is that during the night, Sinterklaas and his Pieten will come by and leave small gifts or candy in the shoes. A common practice is to do this on Saturdays, so that’s 2 or 3 times before December 5th, which is the actual main gift-giving day.

Sinterklaas is still very popular in the Netherlands and as you can tell, it has a lot of similarities to Santa Claus. But even that old fella is gaining popularity here as well, especially with the increasing influence of American culture.

December

December is of course the month where Christmas is celebrated. While Sinterklaas is the main gift-giving event for most Dutch people, Christmas is more about spending time with family, enjoying festive meals, and celebrating the holiday season.

Another big thing in December is New Year’s Eve, known as ‘Oud en Nieuw’ in Dutch. People celebrate the transition to the new year with fireworks, parties, and gatherings. Fireworks are a big tradition in the Netherlands, but will be technically banned next year. Talks were ongoing for last year and this year, but legality and enforcement were still a bit fuzzy.

Fireworks set off in every street, you can see multiple streets-worth of fireworks going off at the same time.

However, we’ve pretty much reached Winter here.. so I guess that will be it for Autumn in the Netherlands!