Kids with lanterns singing for candy: Sint Maarten increasingly popular in Netherlands
In dozens of Dutch towns, children with handmade lanterns will take to the streets, singing at their neighbors’ doors in exchange for candy, or they’ll participate in a candlelight parade with a bonfire at the end. Sint Maarten’s Day on November 11 isn’t celebrated everywhere in the Netherlands, but it is increasingly popular.
Sint Maarten was a 4th-century bishop of Tours, known for sharing his cloak with a beggar. What once was a Catholic holiday is now a party celebrated from Venlo to Almere, and from Groningen to Haarlem, but surprisingly not really in the predominantly Catholic areas, RTL Nieuws found in a survey of the municipalities.
According to the broadcasters, in Catholic provinces like Noord-Brabant, the holiday remains primarily a religious affair. In other parts of the country, it evolved into child-oriented traditions, with the religious aspect largely abandoned.
In many villages, towns, and cities, children go door-to-door in the evening with their handmade lanterns, singing for candy. In some places, like Venlo, there’s a lantern parade with a bonfire. In Utrecht, a parade with light sculptures has emerged in recent decades.
“Sint Maarten was a very popular saint in Europe, more important than Saint Nicholas,” Professor Irene Stengs, a senior researcher of ethnology at the Meertens Institute, told RTL Nieuws. Sint Maarten’s story goes that he was the son of a Roman officer and soldier and encountered a cold beggar at the city gate of Amiens, France. He took out his sword, cut his cloak in half, and gave half to the beggar. According to the story, Christ appeared in his dream that night with the half cloak, and the vision made such an impression on him that he dedicated the rest of his life to the poor.
These days, few people know the story of the Catholic saint. “It has become a secularized holiday,” Stengs said. “It has nothing to do with Catholicism anymore.” But she noted that in most of the new traditions, inclusivity and sharing remain central, like the story of Sint Maarten.
