festivals and celebrations.
Hallo my name is Fleur Tiemeijer and I’m fourteen years old. I live in Holland in Uitgeest I like the village very much and I have a lot of friend there. I’m in the second form of the Jac.P.Thijsse college in Castricum I study tto and I like it very much. My school is with the bike 20 minutes away from my house.
My hobbies are singing, playing piano and playing hockey.
I’m singing since I can talk I was singing with my mother and my grandma. I sing already 10 years and I like it very much. I have done a lot of thinks like the voice kids it was a great advancer. I’ve been playing the piano 6 years and I like it also very much. And at least but not last I play hockey I do it now for 3 years and It’s a great sport to do with friends.
My family is consists of my father Ernst he is 50 years old and he works by Transavia (at the airport) at technical service. My mothers name is Mary she is 48 years old and she is working on a primary school as a teacher. My sister her name is Denise and she is 18 years old, she is working in a supermarket and goes to school.
Kind regards,
Fleur Tiemeijer
My name is Lieke Molenaar I am 12 years old and life in the Netherland. The place where I life is called Uitgeest, that is near Alkmaar in the province: North-Holland. My mother her name is Ester van Ouwerkerk and my father his name is Rick Molenaar I have also a older brother, his name is Jelle Molenaar.
My school is called “J. P. Thijsse college”. My level of school is HAVO, the second year and the 6th second Havo class and the abbreviation of my class is 2HF. But my way of learning on school is more difficult because i do TTO, it means that i do all the lessons in English only not; Dutch, Spanish, German, french and physics. My brother jelle he does also TTO.
My hobbies are: snowboarding and skiing. Every spring holiday i go to Austria in the village Westendorf. The half of the week i am skiing and the other half of the week i am snowboarding. We go every year to Westendorf becaus there life friends of us.
Every saturdaymorning i give gymastic lessons to small children with the age of 3 years. It is very nice to do because are very young. But during the lessons is an proffesional teacher who helps them also.
Lieke Molenaar
Hello my name is Luna,
Im a 14 year old dutch girl. Im in the second form. I have 2 older older sisters, Dana 17 years old ans Manon 20 years old. Manon doesn’t live at home anymore, she bought a hous with herboyfriend. My dad is the boss of a cleaning company. But doesn’t only clean for example people with their luggage on cruise ships and they also drive expensive shoes to their stores. My mom doent have a job but does a lot at home. My hobbies are dancing and I like drawing but I don’t have the drive for that anymore. Ive been dancing since I was 5 at the same dancing school and still enjoy every perfomance and repetition. I met my best frien ever at dancing our dance group consists of 9 girls and together we are called Lusion because we were aall separate group who got put together. My sisters used to dance but one of them, Manon quit 3 years ago unfortunately but luckily my other sister Dana still dances.
Bye,
Luna
Hello my name is Fidele, I'm thirteen years old and I live in the north of Holland in a village called Akersloot. I live there with my dad, his name is fidel (41), big brother called Desire(20) and little brother called Joachim(12). My dad works at the airport of Amsterdam and my big brother is in France of his studies. Me and my still go to school in castricum called the Jac. p. Thijsse College. Me and Joachim go to diffrent schools because he has a diffrent level as me. Besides going to school I also play Basketball at a club nearby. It is really fun to pay because toy develop skills and become more and more social. I don't play it for that long that means that I'm not the best.. I bope you got to know enough about me!
kind regards,
fidele
Our favourite Festivals/Celebrations
We like Sinterklaas a lot because it’s a traditional Dutch celebration. Sinterklaas comes with a story. It tells the story of a humble man named Sint Nicholas who at midnight travelled all through the Netherlands to bring the children presents and treats on his horse. With his helpers called “zwarte pieten” who are man covered in black soot from all the chimneys. Every native dutch person knows the story by head and it usually gets told by their parents.
Though this story is accurate to the real story , it’s a bit changed to make it sweeter.
On the 14th of November Sinterklaas will arrive in a place called Meppel where he will wave at the children while the Pieten throw candy. The actual celebration is a bit later , it’s on the 5th of December. On the day of the celebration it’s common to ask your grandparents to come and celebrate it with you. I myself love it when it’s sinterklaas that we play all the Sinterklaas songs and eat some typical treats like “pepernoten” what are a kind of gingerbread cookies.
Another one of our favorites is Sint-Maarten I know what you think: “isn’t that the same?” the answer is no. It’s a bit similar though I have to admit.
This is also based of a story about a man who rode on his horse on a cold winter night and saw a homeless man starving and cold on the streets. So he got off his horse and asked the man if he was cold , the man nodded. So with his sword he cut off a part of his mantle and give the man half of it. The man doesn’t want to take the lovely offer but the humble Sint-Maarten insists it’s no problem. That night the man didn’t die and was forever thankful.
This celebration doesn’t have anything in common with the story because it gets celebrated really different. It’s a celebration where kids walk on the streets at night with beautiful self-made lantern and sing in the front of the doors to get candy of the people. Only young kids walk around the neighbourhoods usually.
How do schools participate/ do they even participate
Yes schools do participate in both. Some do more than others but primary schools do and secondary schools too. Let’s start with Sinterklaas , in this case it gets celebrated more in primary schools. This is because it is actually a celebration for kids because they believe he really exsists and older children don’t (but we still celebrate it with presents) the schools get decorated with little flags and images of Sinterklaas and his Pieten.
The kids usually practice songs and schools organise a party for Sinterklaas to come. He gives speech and the pieten throw some candy and then he leaves.
Sint-Maarten is different , only primary schools participate. Primary school usually make lanterns with the kids and “pratice”. The laterns I always thought were fun to make , because they are cute.
The interview with my grandma about the celebrations here in The Netherlands (by Luna)
Ada van Der Pietenman , 77 years old.
- How did people celebrate Sinterklaas in your time?
- We celebrated just like you do right now but of course with less presents, in my time we even hung up a sock and you might think doesn’t that belong to Christmas but we did also with Sinterklaas. I still think it’s fantastic.
- Back then were there also problems because of “Zwarte piet”?
- No! what a stupidity
- Can you remember an present you got from Sinterklaas?
- I can remember getting dolls , not those beautiful dolls right now. No I’m talking about the dolls with cotton bodies and faces of stone. I remember when I got a doll I was really scared I would drop it so I laid it on the countertop. But it ended up having a whole in it’s head because I laid it down to fast. One of the other things I got were just sweets and cookies.
- Did you also celebrate Sint-Maarten?
- Yes, we always bought tons of sweets and in my time we didn’t make a lantern like you used to do we bought one in the store. We would walk around with a candle in the lanterns but you can guess how long that lasted hahahaha. They got the destroyed by the heavy wind or by burning down because of the candle.
- Did your grandparents come to celebrate Sinterklaas like we do now?
- Mmm my grandparents were death before we really celebrated except of one , the rest had a really death.
- This is the last question but did you sing the same songs as we did with both celebrations?
- Yes for sure! They didn’t change a single bit , there are some new ones added in the past years but the ones you used to sing were as old as me hahahha.
Question: What are the most festivals and celebrations in your town?
Answer:
“Sint Maarten”
“mini-elfstedentocht”
“Sinterklaas”
Children walk with a lampion and knocking on doors and sing a song. On the end of the song they get something (candy).
A grassfield in Uitgeest is stuffed with water, when its freezing the water become ice. We ice skating the whole evening and doing matches.
An old man that lives in Spain comes every year to holland with his “zwarte pieten”. In the evening you sing a song with your shoe at the chimney, the next day there is an surprise in your shoe from Sinterklaas
Question: Is there is a diffrence in festivals now and in the past?
Answer: yes, because in the past were old stuff and now we have better light fort he lampions and better skates for ice skating. All the other things are the same but there is a diffrence betw