Comments on: Sinterklaas eve

By: JulieAnn

JulieAnn — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:34:06 +0000

I’m taking notes – that’s really cool to do

By: dutchgirl

dutchgirl — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:20:30 +0000

@Beth I love the idea of the three nights followed by the big Christmas! Only then I would have to get all my gifts bought so early in December (yikes). I put the story of the three daughters in the first part of my little book. I’ll have to look for “Tales Told in Holland”.

@Tom I actually did think of that! (but I didn’t put the cookies out) some people do use little bags inside of their shoes. But we’ve had so much snow it was more of a problem that the candy was frozen and our shoes were full of snow.

By: Bette

Bette — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:14:49 +0000

The book is a lovely idea!

When Dutchkid gets much, much older, you can introduce her to the David Sedaris story on Sinterklaas…or not. I think the tradition’s nice the way you’re doing it.

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1202-DEC_SEDARIS

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 23:43:57 +0000

Ok, I have a question…
If you put cookies in your shoes over night, won’t they taste like feet?

By: Beth

Beth — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:28:20 +0000

We celebrated too. We actually put out our wooden shoes for three nights based on one of the legends where St Nicholas drops a bag of gold for the farmers daughters’ dowery, one bag for three nights–one for each daughter. Then after the 3rd morning we opened our own Christmas presents. This will be an annual tradition hopefully, since we’re usually traveling over Christmas. We also made pepernoten. It was gross. Ours were balls, but they didn’t really taste very good. I’ll have to look for a different recipe or maybe they just aren’t for us! My mom sent speculaas, chocolate coins, and a sinterklaas ornament. For the shoes, I put in a small toy & mints one night, an ornament and m&ms, and the final night gold sacajawea coins and a homemade chocolate letter. And I scattered a couple of the chocolate coins around each night. We had a lot of fun with it. I couldn’t find any children’s story books either. I did buy “Tales Told in Holland” which has the Sinterklaas story.

By: liberal army wife

liberal army wife — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:41:46 +0000

Oh, but Nikolaus is such a lovely tradition. I used to put out my shoes for the german version, I had to learn a poem even. my son did it too, and there WERE times he got coal… they aren’t doing it with my granddaughter – the puppy is one reason, he’ll scarf anything! but I’m hoping that next year, when she’s almost five, they might start. LOVE your little book!

LAW

By: dutchgirl

dutchgirl — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:47:45 +0000

@Karen that is too funny that they didn’t say anything! I’m starting to wonder if I have too many traditions going on myself.

@Lori I demand to hear the song!

By: Lori

Lori — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:06:27 +0000

I still remember learning to sing the Sinterklass song in Dutch when I was in third grade. Maybe I’ll sing it for you some day Ok, so I don’t remember the whole thing…

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 20:14:15 +0000

My kids left their shoes out last night for “St. Nicholas Day” (as they called it) except they didn’t tell us about it. So no candy this morning. They were a little dissapointed.

Too many traditions to remember! Ahh!

But yours is so sweet! The Dutch Kid is so lucky.