Sinterklaas Nostalgia

It's almost that time of the year again... The month where the Geenens almost go bankrupt on Sinterklaas, 2 kids' birthdays, and Christmas! 

Sinterklaas makes his arrival in Holland around the 15th of November each year. Starting on his arrival date, and until his birthday on the 5th of December, children put their shoes out by the door in hopes that the zwarte pieten will fill their shoes with small presents and candies. 

Well, let me tell you, folks... twenty days is a really long time to have random shoes and pepernoten crumbs laying around the house. 

Not to mention, the children wake up before the roosters crow to see if they've hit the jackpot or not. Which means Rob and I are woken by excited shreeks of  joy or screaming over who got more pepernoten. 

Ahem... I digress

While I love the Dutch culture, and carrying on Dutch traditions in our home, I also love being able to "edit" them a bit since we live 5,000 miles away and the kids don't know the difference.

That being said, Sinterklaas did not make his arrival until 1 week later this year, and he will be celebrating his birthday 1 week earlier. Which means that I only have one week of vacuuming every morning :) 

Last night at dinner Max said to me, "mommy, do you remember that time in Holland when I dressed up like a zwarte piet? I wish I could do that again some time!" Thankfully the little pieten (ahem, tante (aunt) Esther) heard his plea!

This morning the kids were thrilled with their new costumes!

Max was really excited, he just had difficulty producing a "normal" smile at 06:30 this morning!

Since I didn't have time to do a whole photo shoot this morning, Max put on his costume again to let me see how excited he was. With his pajamas on this morning, I didn't realize how revealing the costume was! Perhaps Mama Piet should have given Lucas the pietenpak and Max the Sinterklaas costume! Oops! 

Either way, the children are happy which means I am happy! Rob will be travelling home this weekend to celebrate pakjesavond (Sinterklaas's birthday) with us. Before I go, I would like to leave you all with a little bit of nostalgia from pakjesavond 2008. This is a video I made for Rob while he was in Afghanistan. Enjoy!

Sinterklaas 2008 from Whitney Geenen on Vimeo.