December 5th

Sinterklaas visited our house last night and left a little treat in our shoes.  Every since I can remember we have celebrated the coming of Sinterklaas, an old man dressed as a bishop, and the dutch version of Santa Claus.  Near the end of November Sinterklass arrives to town by boat and rides a white horse through town for all the children to greet him.  On the night of Dec 5th he leaves presents in the children's shoes or clogs while they sleep.  He is accompanied by Black Peter who keeps a list of the nice and naughty children and helps Sinterklaas on his very busy night. Every year we leave out one shoe at the end of our hallway in hopes the Sinterklaas will once again leave a little treat.  In the past it has been an Archie comic or chocolates, and sticking to his traditional ways this year was now different as we found a package of 3 Lindor chocolates sticking out of our shoes.  It is also tradition to receive a Chocolate shape as the first initial of your name or as we like to call it a Chocolate letter. This year my Oma came for a visit and left behind 6 chocolate letters one for each of us.  

 In the past we have celebrated this dutch tradition with my mom's side of the family.  We usually came together on the closest sunday to Dec 5th and share in a Christmas meal and often open gifts. When I was younger I loved being able to open a few Christmas gifts several weeks before Christmas Day because I could play with them all the days leading up to Christmas. I also loved writing in my school journal and sharing with my school friends how our family celebrates Christmas early.