Sinterklaas gifts and surprises!
Marrying into a Dutch family means getting to celebrate Sinterklaas every December. I love how much effort goes into writing poems and creating surprises for everyone! This year we celebrated at Barbara’s place in Tilburg to exchange gifts and surprises.
A recap: Sinterklaas is the predecessor of Santa – a bishop from Turkey living in Spain who came by steamboat with his Zwarte Pieten to give gifts to good children and branches to whip the bad children. If you’ve been really bad you get put in Sinterklaas’s bag and taken back to Spain. A lot to process.
What I love about Sinterklaas is that the focus is on writing poems and being creative with your surprise. A tradition of Sinterklaas is not just giving a gift, but you draw names, write them a poem, and hide their gift within a homemade surprise that’s been personalized for the recipient.
This year we discovered that a love for Somebody Feed Phil is especially strong in the family 🙂
Els recreated De Koffie-Kamer for Barbara
Barbara created a giant pint of Els’s favorite ice cream
Somebody Better Feed Sofie puzzle that I made to the theme song of the family’s favorite show
Sofie’s surprise she made for Wesley
I really love the surprise Wesley made for Nikki – especially the song list with collaborations with all the family members 🙂
Somebody Better Feed Koen intro! Nikki did such a great job editing in photos of Koen!
This was kind of a gift for me too!
Koen made a special edition Theo Brörmann wine for his dad with a bottle of Port inside that we bought for him in Porto
Very sweet artwork Koen had done for me 🙂
An American in Antwerp 