SINTERKLAAS: Celebrated Dec 5th

Last week, I received an email from Lori asking if I was ready for Christmas CUZ she is ready - inside and outside of her house are all done & I received your Xmas card, with a gorgeous family photo - VERY ORGANIZED! To answer your question, we celebrated Sinterklaas on December 5th, and only after Sinterklaas is over do the Dutch prepare for Christmas or bring out the trees & start decorating. Unfortunately, this Saturday, I was in bed recovering from the flu so we did not get around to creating Christmas cheer ... yet. Arnie did bring a few or our "famous" Christmas pieces out:

Such as our Bubbles & Arnie cups which we made ourselves at Colour Me Mine in Amsterdam. What might these fine looking cups be used for, you might ask? These are our traditional eggnog drinking cups.

Next we have our famous stockings that came all the way from Macy's in New York City - one of our favourite cities.

Now back to the topic in my title: Sinterklaas celebrations and its traditions. I have had the pleasure of dressing up 3 times as his helper for the children's Sinterklaas party at work & then made a "surprise" visit to some of our friends with young children - really FUN as you can see below! I caught the girls by surprise in the pjs when I skipped through their back yard & into their back door with gifts, cholocate letters, snoopjes (little candies) & addressed them by their first names: Aleande, the youngest, was in a mild form of shock, as you can see from the photo. Her face lit with excitement because THERE WAS A REAL ZWARTE PIET IN HER GARDEN!!!!

These helpers are called "Zwarte Pieten" -> translates to "Black Peter", black due to smoke from chimneys and NOT because they are slaves - this is a controversial subject amongst expats and various other non-sense groups who like to argue for the sake of arguing rather than enjoying the simplicity & innocence in the spirit that it is intended - for the children.

Sinterklaas & his Zwarte Pieten arrives each year in the Netherlands around mid November & it is a big, BIG, MAJOR event! Click here to see some pictures of Sinterklaas in Amsterdam. The saint, who travels from Spain by steamboat, is accompanied by his white horse and his knight, Black Peter (Zwarte Piet), as well as several "help" Peters. Legend goes that Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet travel over the roofs of the Dutch houses at night. The Dutch children put their shoes (used to be wooden shoes) in front of the fire place. They sing songs and provide a carrot for the horse. At night Zwarte Piet puts gifts and candy in it. This is sooooo cute :) I have added a link in my additional link list that you can check out for more info on food, songs, and generally anything about its festivities.

On the evening of December 5th, Dutch families celebrate Sinterklaas' birthday. For the smallest children, who still believe, a LOUD, heart-stopping knock on the door signifies the arrival of Sinterklaas. Simultaneously, candy is thrown from upstairs by Zwarte Piet. When the door is opened, a large bag full of gifts awaits on the front step. Every year I learn something new about this tradition & this year it was the LOUD bang on the door & then ... I found 2 big bags of gifts on the door step. Guess who?

This year, I bought a new cheese fondu set with special Swiss cheese blends. I left work early so I could prepare the bread into bite size pieces, cut up different veggies & arrange the table. When Arnie came home, we started our evening by opening our white wine & lighting the fondu. I was so excited about this idea & I wanted to make this evening special for Arnie with a new Bubbles tradition. It was special alright but not like I anticipated. You see ... I had one of my "bubbles moments". It seems that in my "excitement" I sent up the fondu base upside down - dumb - dumb - dumb and basically BLEW UP OUR FONDU PAN!!! Yep ... not one of my proudest moments. Don't believe me ... look for yourself - this is all that is left of it.

We salvaged what we could by transferring it to a mental pan and tried to make the best of it. Luckily, we had more cheese and there was not too much of it all the walls. Poor bubbles, she really blew it - pardon the pun.