To answer our main question, we will compare three festivities: Christmas, Easter and St. Nicholas. We will compare the way of celebrating these festivities in elementary school; we will compare the crafts, the food and the activities.
Celebrating Christmas
First we will describe celebrating Christmas in the Netherlands and in Slovenia. In the Netherlands we have a Christmas tree and we decorate it. In school we make crafts, like Christmas trees or angels made from paper. At Christmas time it´s all about cosiness. We are with family and have an extensive meal with them. We invite our family to our house or go to their house. Many people eat as we say in Dutch “gourmet”, but in general we can say that the most of the people have a very extensive meal. The religious people go to church to attend the mass. Furthermore there are no set activities, but it´s all about cosiness, so most of the people do cosy things with family. In Slovenia we also decorate the Christmas tree and the house, tables, doors… In school we do art crafts for example trees made of paper like in the Netherlands. On the Christmas Eve we have Christmas dinner where we mostly eat chicken, potatoes… on Christmas day some of people receive gifts from Santa Claus, which are under the Christmas tree. Many of people also go to the church on Christmas Eve to attend the midnight mass to wait for the arrival of the Jesus.
In general we can say that the way of celebrating Christmas isn´t so different at all. The crafts, food and activities are quite the same. In both countries the children make crafts like Christmas trees, they eat extensive meals and some people go to church. The main difference we discovered is that in the Netherlands there is a second Christmas day (26th December), but that doesn´t exist in Slovenia.
Celebrating Easter
Secondly we are going to describe the celebration of Easter in both countries. In the Netherlands we make
crafts like eggs. The children colour a drawing of an egg and also paint real eggs. As an activity the children go and search for the chocolate eggs, which are hidden by the “Easter Bunny”. It´s mostly the celebration of the arrival of the spring. That is why there are so many colours, like yellow, and why there is a bunny. Most of the people have an Easter breakfast, with croissants and eggs of course. Many religious people go to church with Easter too. In Slovenia we make special paintings on eggs with natural ingredients for example with a leaf on the egg and then you cook it in water filled with onion leafs. In schools we also do art crafts like little chickens, bunnies, eggs… We have also some traditional games like ˝downhill eggs˝ - the players roll the eggs downhill and the egg that had the biggest distance wins. Many people also go to church with the baskets of food to bless them. The next day many of people go to the mass and after it, they have eastern breakfast, which consists of special traditional cake called potica, eggs, horseradish, ham and they all represent the symbols of Jesus calvary and they were blessed the day before.
So in the Netherlands most of the people celebrate Easter like feast for the beginning of the spring. But there are also people who celebrate it as a religious feast and they go to church. In Slovenia most of the people celebrate Easter as a religious celebration. For example they have the breakfast with all the food which is symbol for a part of Jesus´ calvary. In school it´s actually quite the same, with the Easter eggs and Easter crafts. The difference between the way of celebrating Easter in the Netherlands and in Slovenia is that, in general, people in Slovenia celebrate Easter in a more religious way than in the Netherlands.
Celebrating Miklavž / Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas)
The last but not least we will describe the celebration of Saint Nicholas, because we found the most differences here. In the Netherlands this is a quite big event for children. In Dutch it is called “Sinterklaas”. The story is very exciting for children. St. Nicholas is coming from Spain with the steamship in November. He comes together with his helpers, which are called “zwarte pieten” and with his white horse. The helpers give out little cookies; the “pepernoten” and other kinds of candy. The children put their shoe in front of the fireplace in the evening and sing songs. In the night the helpers come and put candy, like the chocolate first letter of the child's name, in their shoes, so in the morning the children find the candy. In the evening of 5th December the big thing has come. On that evening St. Nicholas brings presents and the next day he goes back to Spain again. So this is a very exciting story for children and also at school. On many schools Saint Nicholas is celebrated and he also arrives at the school one day. The children make crafts and also make paintings to give to Saint Nicholas. At some schools the children bake the “pepernoten” and eat them. Some children are afraid of the helpers, but that´s not the intention. In general it´s a very exciting celebration for all the children. In Slovenia this celebration is called ˝Miklavž˝. So we have different story behind the meaning of this festive. Our story goes like this: There was a man with three daughters. They were old enough to get married but the family was very poor. Father didn’t have enough money to enable them the decent wedding that the girls would deserve so he send them to go to work in public house so the girls could have a dowry. The Saint Nicholas heard their story so he went in the middle of the night to their home and he putted the money for all three of them in their house. Now children write the letters with their wishes and then Saint Nicholas brings the presents in the night from 5th to 6th of December. In schools, churches, cities Saint Nicholas visit the little children with the ˝parklji˝ which are black devils who punish the naughty children (actually they just scare them). We also have Miklavž cookies and parkeljni made out of bread. It’s also an exciting story for our children in Slovenia. 
So I think we can say that we found a feast that is celebrated very differently. The whole story behind the feast is different and also are the persons, like the helpers. The activities are also different, in the Netherlands the children put their shoes in front of the fireplace, but in Slovenia they don´t. In both countries the roots of the story are the same, but in the Netherlands these roots faded and eventually the mentioned story grew.
In general we can conclude from all of this that children in Slovenia know the stories behind the celebrations better than the children in the Netherlands. The celebrations itself are similar, except for a few small differences. The difference is in the involvement in schools. In the Netherlands are the real religious stories fading, while in Slovenia the children still learn these stories. Of course there are exceptions but the principle is the same.
But you can ask yourself why it is so important to know these stories? Well, in the olden days, people used to celebrate traditional feasts. When summer came, they celebrated that the sun was coming again. When the longest day arrived, they celebrated it, when the sun disappeared again, they celebrated it. Everything was based on nature and they just celebrated everything. But developments were made. For example: the winter coat. We can dress ourselves against the cold now, so people don’t celebrate winter anymore. We don’t appreciate nature enough now and the cause of that are the developments that are made by humans. Education wants to change this. The children are the diamonds of our society, they are the future. So when education involves celebrations, the children will remember when they’re older. Well, the purpose of celebrating these feasts is that the children carry the messages of the feasts in their hearts. For example: St. Michael. At that feast it’s all about courage. There’s a whole story behind it, with a dragon and a knight, but the message is that you need courage. So the children will carry this message with them for the rest of their lives. So, that’s the purpose of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment