Sinterklaas

We have been able to keep the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, and celebrated it this year on December 6th. The week leading up to this, the kids set their dutch shoes (klompjes) in front of the fire place and sang several Sinterklaas songs, while during the day we had Sinterklaas songs playing on the CD-player. The girls know several songs, and are so worried about Sinterklaas not hearing them, that they almost crawl in the fire-place to make sure he can hear them. It is so fun to see them be careful about Zwarte Piet not catching them being bad, and noticing that he (Zwarte Piet) even follows them into the stores, as he had found the exact same clothes that they had tried on the previous week. That Zwarte Piet is one smart cookie! We had a wonderful evening, with homemade 'pepernoten' (especially mama liked them and ate most of them) hot chocolate and especially presents. The girls got some new desparately needed clothes and church shoes, as well as some unicorn sticker and coloring books. They were so happy with every single present, they were very grateful! Jonkje didn't really get it, but he was still as happy as could be, and loved ripping the paper off! I (mama) also wrote a poem to the girls and papa in Dutch, which they read themselves and seemed to enjoy. The poem writing is a big tradition in my family, and since I became somewhat mature and stopped focussing on the presents, the poems have been my favorite part of Sinterklaas. Mostly, we write a little story of what has happened to/with that person in the past year, and simply rewrite the sentences such that they rhyme, which every now and then makes the grammar quite interesting! I love it though, and always look forward to my parents sending me those poems every year (now by email).