Fashion fades, friendship is eternal.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Dank U, Sinterklaasje!

There are a lot of perqs to being married to a Dutch man. One of them is traveling to the Netherlands to visit family and friends. One of them is eating a lot of black licorice. And one of them is ushering in the holiday season by celebrating St. Nicholas' Day in early December. Yesterday we had a houseful of family and close friends enjoying tasty food and surprises from Sinterklaas.

In Holland, Sinterklaas is a children's holiday. Parents write poems and prepare specially-wrapped surprises (pronounced the Dutch way, sur-PREE-suhs) for the good little children, who have spent weeks anticipating St. Nicholas's arrival. One of J's favorite childhood surprises was a large facsimile of an American half-dollar coin made out of cardboard, given to him on the last Sinterklaas before his family moved to the United States. He still has it, more than 30 years later.