Find out about Dutch holidays at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_the_Netherlands!
The two holidays that are especially Dutch are Koninginnedag and Sinterklaas. On Koninginnedag, the ban on street selling and performing without permits is lifted, and the streets are lined with sellers and performers. On this one day, everyone wears bright, vivid orange, often buying festive hats or other orange paraphernalia to celebrate the Queen’s birthday.
Sinterklaas is basically the Dutch Christmas. Although they do still have “Kerstmis”, it was once described by a friend of mine as a “grown-up holiday”. All the fun and presents are given on the evening of the fifth of December by Sinterklaas (Saint Klaas). He takes a steamboat from Spain to the Netherlands several days early, and then, on the special night, he rides his white horse, Amerigo, to each house, surrounded by his dark Zwarte Pieten. Each child has left out a shoe to be filled with pepernoten (mini gingersnaps), and the first letter of their name in chocolate, as well as whatever other treats he has in store. If the child has not been good, however, he is left either a stick in his shoe to be whipped with, or he is taken away in Sinterklaas’s sack to become a Zwarte Piet.
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