{"id":659,"date":"2012-12-17T17:10:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T17:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikemalonedds.com\/blog1\/?p=659"},"modified":"2019-07-29T19:52:24","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T19:52:24","slug":"black-pete-other-odd-scandinavian-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.camelliadds.com\/blog1\/black-pete-other-odd-scandinavian-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"“Black Pete” & Other Odd Scandinavian Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slightly Creepy Holiday Traditions From Around The World<\/strong><\/p>\n

After learning about how other people celebrate the holidays, I can honestly say I am glad to be an American.\u00a0 While we drink eggnog, sing along to Christmas carols and our children wait for Santa to bring them presents, in the Ukraine people decorate their trees with spiders instead of tinsel, and in Spain children beat a log until it excretes their presents.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As there are numerous unsettling non-American traditions out there, here is a list of just four creepy traditions\u2014excluding the just plain nasty ones I couldn\u2019t bear to write about:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Iceland\u2014Yule Lads<\/strong>.\u00a0 Instead of elves, Iceland has their own Santa\u2019s helpers called \u2018Yule Lads<\/a>.\u2019\u00a0 They resemble Snow White\u2019s seven dwarfs except they\u2019re much, much creepier.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t help they have names like Pot-Scraper, Door-Sniffer, Spoon-Licker, and Window-Peeper.\u00a0 Despite the fact that their names are ridden with all sorts of eerie innuendos, the Yule Lads do resemble jolly old St. Nicholas in that they \u2018give\u2019 the children of Iceland gifts during the 13 days leading up to Christmas.\u00a0 While this seems harmless, they do have a pet cat cleverly named \u2018Yuletide Cat\u2019 who supposedly eats all the children who don\u2019t receive new clothes by Christmas.\u00a0 I really don\u2019t understand this\u2014shouldn\u2019t the cat be eating the spoiled children who are get with lots of gifts, instead of the poor kids who barely have any clothes to wear?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Latvia\u2014Demented Winter Festival<\/strong>.\u00a0 Instead of Christmas, Latvians celebrate a Pagan festival called Ziemassv\u0113tki<\/a> from the evening of December 24th<\/sup> to the 25th<\/sup> in which the locals feast on delicacies such as boiled pig\u2019s snout.\u00a0 But not only that, they leave food out for the \u2018ghosts\u2019 and I don\u2019t mean on the dinner table.\u00a0 The food can be left in a barn, a sauna, or anywhere for that matter.\u00a0 And<\/em> it\u2019s left out until New Year\u2019s so that it\u2019s available to the beloved ones who have departed until the beginning of the New Year.\u00a0 My guess is that the rats get to the food first before the spirits do.\u00a0 On top of all this, Norweigan \u2018mummers\u2019 (townspeople, so basically anyone and everyone) dress up in ridiculous costumes\u2014typically as bears and horses\u2014and knock on random people\u2019s doors and sing to drive away evil spirits.\u00a0 It sounds a lot like Halloween trick-or-treating in America, except these people are usually adults instead of children and they get alcohol instead of candy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Norway \u201cHide the Broom\u201d.<\/strong>\u00a0 This tradition also reminds me of our celebration of Halloween.\u00a0 Norwegians celebrate Christmas pretty similarly to us Americans, with church services, feasting, and general merriment.\u00a0 Except they also have a bizarre if not creepy tradition of \u2018broom-hiding<\/a>.\u2019\u00a0 Norwegians households on Christmas Eve hide their brooms and brushes so that the witches and evil spirits (who supposedly rise from the dead the night before Christmas) don\u2019t steal these \u2018necessities\u2019 and wreak havoc until the dawn of Christmas Day.\u00a0 This is really, really strange\u2026.I could see hiding your iPad, but is broom really that valuable?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Netherlands\u2014Zwart Piet<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 The Dutch have possibly the most disturbing Christmas tradition of all.\u00a0 Santa Claus, or Sinterklaas as he is called in the Netherlands, does not have elves but one helper called Zwart Piet, which literally means \u2018Black Pete.\u2019\u00a0 I already am uncomfortable with just knowing the name.\u00a0 So Sinterklaas and Zwart Piet arrive by boat every Christmas to give presents to the good children, while the bad children get abducted by Black Pete who takes them back to Spain as punishment.\u00a0 There is some dispute over the obvious racial issue here of Santa having a black \u2018helper\u2019 doing all his work for him, but the purists who believe in keeping the tradition say that Pete\u2019s face is obviously black because it\u2019s covered in soot from going down all the chimneys\u2026.duh!\u00a0 Yet why does Black Pete have an afro and absurdly large lips?\u00a0 Oh, a better question\u2026why do so many Dutch white people feel the need to dress up as him for Christmas?\u00a0Maybe people around the world think our\u00a0Christmas\u00a0traditions are weird too. What do you think? Are our traditions weird to those outside the country?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr. Mike Malone<\/a>\u00a0and his\u00a0team<\/a>\u00a0practice expert cosmetic dentistry in Lafayette, LA.\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. Malone is the former president and current accredited member of the\u00a0American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry<\/a>. \u00a0He\u00a0is also the official Cosmetic Dentist of the Miss Louisiana USA and Miss Louisiana Teen USA pageants. Check out his website<\/a> for more information.<\/p>\n

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