Netherlands Edition
Dia de la Candelaria leads today's complete edition for Netherlands.
Daily Edition
Official observances, world days, local context, and everyday celebrations for people who need something worth reading, sharing, or talking about today.
The Virgin of Candelaria is venerated across northern Chile, especially in the mining towns where faith is the only thing stronger than the desert. Processions carry her through streets lined with copihues and copper dust. The miners pray to her before every shift and she has never let them down.
The feast of Candlemas marks the midpoint of winter, and the tradition is to eat pancakes (pannenkoeken). The Dutch pancake is different from the American pancake: it is large, thin, and served with bacon, cheese, apples, or raisins. The tradition of eating pancakes on Candlemas is old, and the saying goes that if the sun shines on Candlemas, the winter will last six more weeks. The pancake restaurants (pannenkoekenhuizen) in the Netherlands are often located in old farms and windmills, and the menu can have over 80 different varieties of pancakes. The town of Buren claims to be the pancake capital of the Netherlands.