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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rosemary who wrote (26225)	12/23/1997 3:11:00 PM
From: Paul van Wijk	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 176388

Rosemary, I think we do it the same way as you americans. Food, presents, being nice to eachother, care for the poor a few days. The only unique thing in Holland is that we have two Santa's. One like your Santa, we call him the "Christman". But the real man for us the dutch is Sinterklaas. Although he's a little bit weird. Sinterklaas was born in Turky (not turkey). He is very, very old and looks a little bit like santa-claus, but he has no beer-stumach. (hope I translated it well). He has a funny hat called a "mijter". He always has a book in his hand (the book from "sinterklaas"). In this famous book he can read every detail about all the kids who have been to naughty. The man lives in Madrid most of the year. But in November he comes over the sea to Holland with a boat, a steamboat. There is always a live broad-casting when he arrives in the harbour. Sometimes he arrives in a city that is 100 miles from the coast. How he do such things, nobody knows. He always has something "magic". He sits on his white horse, the horse of Sinterklaas. Also on deck are a lot of Zwarte Pieten (Black Pete's). They are his servants. There is a black-pete for everything you can imagine. For example; a black pete who buys the presents is called a purchase-pete. And a black pete who take care of the horse of Sinterklaas is called a horse-pete (the dutch are very original when it comes to picking names). But to continue my story, Sinterklaas comes on land and rides away on his white horse waving with his right hand to all the kids (and parents who also find it very exciting and are glad that they have kids so they have a good excuse to go see him). From the moment he is "in the country" kids are allowed to put their shoe in front of the stove. Usually the kids are forced to put a big carrot in the shoe. This is for the horse of Sinterklaas. When you have nice parents, that will be it, but for those who are unlucky they are also forced to sing a song for the old man. Example; Sinterklaas do come in with your servant, Because we are all sitting straight up, Maybe you have a little time, Before you ride back to Spain, Come then to our house, And leave your little horse outside, And we are singing, and we are jumping and we are very happy Because there are no naughty kids involved In dutch it also rimes! After the kids have sang their song they finally get the change to go to bed. When they were lucky Sinterklaas (or one of his black pete's) put a present in the shoes. You see, there is also some good news. But maybe you have already noticed that Sinterklaas is obsessed by naughty kids. He has no mercy with them. All these kids were put in a bag (the bag from Sinterklaas) and he takes them with him to Madrid. Or, if they were lucky, they will only be spanked by one of his black pete's. Every black pete has a "roe" for this. A "roe" is a bundle of twigs. This goes on for a few weeks until it is 5 december. Then the whole country is celebrating his birthday, although it is a well-known fact that the man's birthday is at the 6-th. And I have to agree, he is weird, but it is really nice of him that instead of getting presents he seems to enjoy giving the whole country presents. But......at the day before his birthday Sinterklaas is on the air. And believe it or not, every year something happens that makes Sinterklaas very disappointed. For example; a kid has said that Sinterklaas doesn't exist and it is all fake. For Sinterklaas this is already enough to cancel the whole party. (as i said, he can't take much from naughty kids, he's obsessed). All the kids who have kissed his ass by singing songs and more of that crap all started to realize NO PRESENTS! From that moment there is total panic. But luckely, after Sinterklaas has told over and over how disappointed he is, he always changed his mind. Usually after innocent kids were again forced to sing a few of his favorite songs to please him. And finally, after dinner is finished, the dishes are cleaned etc., coffee on the table an idiot start knockin on the door. This is one of the black pete's (I guess, never seen them but that is because they are in a hurry. They have to deliver millions of bags with presents through the whole country. And although there are a lot of black-pete's, even you should understand that this is tough operation (we don't have UPS in Holland). Next day, on his birthday, Sinterklaas is already on his way home. According to the above song on his white horse. Why he don't take the steamboat to go home, nobody knows. But as I said before, it's a weird man. What this has to do with Dell? Well uh... Paul