Hint van de Sint

Hoor de windt waait door de bomen!

Hier in huis zelfs waait de wind!

Zou de goede Sint wel komen als hij’t weer zo lelijk vind?

Als hij’t weer zo lelijk vindt.

Ja hij komt in donk’re naachten,

Op zijn paardje oh zo snel.

Als hij wijst hoe wij verwachten oh dan kwam hij zeker wel,

Oh dan kwam hij zeker wel.

Tomorrow is Sinterklaas in the Netherlands! This is one of the traditional Sinterklaas songs and it is spot on with the wind, it has been howling all week!

So, what is Sinterklaas? Sinterklaas is based on Saint Nicholas, the patron Saint of children, sailors and the city of Amsterdam. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving and leaving coins in shoes left out for him. Father Christmas or Santa Claus is also based on Saint Nicholas but Sinterklaas is not at all linked to religion here which is really nice. Other names for Sinterklaas include de Goedheiligman or just de Sint.

Sinterklaas is celebrated on the 5^th of December, on the eve of the birth of Saint Nicholas. Legend has it that the Sint arrives by steam boat from Spain three weeks earlier. Each year he arrives in a different city in the Netherlands, the only criteria being there must be a harbor. This year he arrived in Dordrecht. During the three weeks he visits children in many different cities in the Netherlands and also has ‘help’ Sints as one person can’t be everywhere at the same time, even if he is a Saint.

Sinterklaas ends on 5 December with children receiving gifts from the Sint. Traditional gifts include something hand-made, a well thought out poem about the person and a chocolate alphabet letter. But these days marketing has taken over and toys are also popular gifts. One of the stores motto at the moment is ‘Hint can de Sint’ as ideas for what to buy. Also traditional is leaving your shoe by the fireplace, or more creatively by the extractor fan in the kitchen if you don’t have a fireplace, for the Sint to come down the chimney and leave sweets in it.

In our experience most people celebrate Sinterklaas in some form but it is most popular with families with small children. We really like the fact that Sinterklaas and Christmas are kept very separate; it is a big no-no to confuse Sinterklaas with de Kerstman and even to put up a tree before Sinterklaas is over. It is also nice not to be all Christmased out by cheesy carols in the shops etc. before the beginning of December! But we have been warned that the day after Sinterklaas Christmas hits the shops big time. But I think Christmas is less commercial here than in SA since people mostly do gift giving at Sinterklaas and Christmas time is more for spending time with family.

Traditional treats for Sinterklaas include chocolate alphabet letters, spekulaas biscuits, gevulde spekulaas (a thick layer of amandelspijs, a type of marzipan, sandwiched between two spekulaas biscuits), kruidnoten (think mini ginger biscuits, too more-ish) and truffle kruidnoten (kruidnoten covered in chocolate and dusted in cocoa). Kruidnoten and truffle kruidnoten are definitely our favourites!

We had a lovely dinner and gift swop game last week Sunday with some friends from Justin’s work. We all brought a nice gift and a kitsch gift and swopped them around with a dice with rules for what to do for each number (1 = swop left, 2 = unwrap, 3 = swop right etc). It was really fun and we highly recommend it as an alternate to the ‘yankee swop’game.

Today we had some friends over and enjoyed some snacks and good wine whilst playing board games. It was really fun. It is really nice that we finally know some people over here that we can call friends and do fun stuff with.

Tomorrow, Sinterklaas, both our companies close at 3pm so people can have more time with their families. We are looking forward to an earlier day and a nice quiet dinner together =)

In other news it is two weeks until we leave for Spain! Woohoo!! So much of excited. Next weekend we have booked to go to the Batman Live show which we expect to be mostly acrobatics similar to Cirque du Soleil. And Justin flies to Israel again next Sunday for three nights. We are hoping his new beard gets him through airport security easier this time ‘~)

Finally, yay to Shell & Graham spending some time with our good friends Joan & Mayira in Santiago, Chile this weekend! Hope you guys had a great time together! Wish we could have been there too! Next time =)

Have a good week!!

x