In mid November Sinterklaas arrives on his barge from Spain bringing his Black Piet along with a whole bunch of presents and peppernoten! He stays for 2 weeks and leaves on Kaelan's bday, Dec. 5th, to go back to Spain. Over that 2 weeks he could arrive at your house, knock on the door then run away leaving some gifts behind in a big Sinterklaas bag. He also might arrive while you are sleeping and leave gifts in your shoes. This could happen every evening/night of his stay in the Netherlands or just a few times but there is a lot of pressure on him once the kids get in school because they all talk about how many times Sint came around!
Waiting for Sint and Piet to arrive on his boat.
This year we went to a neighboring village, Son en Breugel, to see Sint arrive on his barge. It was really cool to see him come in that way but we think we liked the small scale, easy access to Sint last year better in our village.
The Madson's have become our best friends here in NL. Not sure what we are going to do when they leave for Portland in February to have a baby!
The girls!
Here they come!
These little speed boats zipped up the canal to keep us entertained while we waited for the slow barge in the distance.
There he is...and no that isn't a barge but for some reason he was on this one and not the huge barge that followed behind.
Peppernoten
After they got off the boat they paraded up the road into the village. All the Zwarte Piet pass out peppernoten along the way. They couldn't stop without 100 kids swarming them. Colette wouldn't get close but Kaelan would follow them around with his bag open yelling "Piet! Piet!" So fun! He did a good job sharing with sister and friends.
See Kaelan in the front with his bag open?
This Piet was talking to me and Colette trying to get her to take a picture with him. She would not have it...obviously I would be posting that pic if she had!
It has been so fun for us to share in this incredibly unique to the Netherlands tradition. They don't do much for Christmas but it doesn't take us long to get to Christmas central in any village in Germany. Most all do a Christmas market and it is all very festive!
