Teasing without hurting
Teasing is part of Sinterklaas, but the line between a wink and a sting is closer than you think. A joke that works fine at the kitchen table lands differently when eight people are listening and the recipient has to laugh while everyone watches. A good teasing joke feels like attention. A bad one feels like a public verdict. This is how to make sure it is the first.
What counts as fair play
Anything someone chooses themselves or already laughs about is usually safe. It is about habits, preferences and small failures with a happy ending:
- Fixed rituals, such as the third cup of coffee before eight or the spot on the sofa that nobody may take.
- Hobbies with an obsessive edge, from jigsaw puzzles to a vegetable garden with more ambition than harvest.
- Small bad luck that has already become a story, like the time the bike stayed behind at the station.
- Peculiar sayings that everyone recognises.
What they have in common is that the person is recognisable in it and there is something kind in it. You tease someone about what they do, not about who they are.
What you had better leave alone
Skip everything that someone is truly sensitive about, even if you think it would be fine. That applies in any case to body and weight, appearance, money, health, a divorce or a loss, unemployment, faith, background and anything to do with fear or insecurity. Even if the recipient jokes about it themselves, that does not hold for the rest of the room.
Also leave alone a recent quarrel or a secret that was confided to you. A poem is read aloud, so what is in it is public.
Softening a sharp line
Sometimes you have a good joke that sounds just a bit too hard. You do not have to cut it. You can soften it with one of the following tricks.
- Make it about yourself or Sint. Let Sint be astonished instead of angry. A line like "even Sint could not follow it" is friendlier than "nobody can follow it".
- Exaggerate until it becomes impossible. Whoever exaggerates so far that nobody believes it teases without accusing.
- Put a compliment behind it. First the sting, then the recognition. That shows you tease because you value the person.
- Refer to a skill instead of a shortcoming. Do not say someone cooks badly, say they cook with courage.
The same example in a sharp and a soft form. First the sharp one:
Je kookt zo slecht dat zelfs de hond je mijdt.
Roughly: You cook so badly that even the dog avoids you.
And the softer one, which makes the same joke but stays loving:
Je kookt met een ruime fantasie, de rookmelder zingt in harmonie.
Roughly: You cook with a generous imagination, the smoke alarm sings along in harmony.
In the second version the cooking problem becomes a kind of art form. The laugh is the same, but the recipient does not feel written off.
Check through the recipient's eyes
Read the poem through one more time, now as if you were the recipient. Imagine you are sitting on the sofa with your parents, your children and a colleague. Ask yourself three questions at every verse:
- Would I laugh at this if someone said it about me?
- Would I be embarrassed if this were read out in this room?
- Is there something in it that is already a sore point, even if that was not the intention?
If you hesitate on any of the three, the answer is almost always to rewrite the line. A joke you have to defend is not a good joke.
Spread the load
A poem that does nothing but tease quickly turns bitter, even if every joke is mild on its own. Alternate. For every two teasing lines there should be at least one line in which you value, admire or affectionately name something. Keep the last verse warm. That is the part of the poem the recipient remembers.
If you really do not know
Ask a third person who knows the recipient well. Do not ask "is it okay?", but "is there a line that made you wince for a moment?".
If you are still in the writing phase, start with the list of facts from the step-by-step plan for a Sinterklaas poem, and mark straight away what you will leave alone. For a colleague you hardly know there is an extra careful line, described in a poem for a colleague. In the writing studio you can rewrite a sharp verse until it is soft enough.