For the first time in years I will be celebrating Sinterklaas
Sinterklaas is the best holiday ever, but you need people who are motivated to spend time on the preparations to properly celebrate it. This year a friend who is originally from Germany but who has lived here for years told me how she wished to do a Dutch Sinterklaas so I jumped in and told her I would love to.
It involves presents, but they have to be inside a 'surprise' (sur-pree-suh), a word that in Dutch is only used for the creative vessels that hold the presents at Sinterklaas.
There should also be a poem to go with the present. Ideally the poem is about the recipient and/or the present, and it may be a bit uncomfortable but not mean. It's Sinterklaas who writes the poems, so you can say a bit more that if you would write them as yourself.
So I'm off now to get chocolate letters, papier-maché, colored paper, glue, a small bicycle light and cardboard boxes to make a lighthouse (relates to the main present, a book, and to her former career as a captain on a sailing ship). It will have her name in chocolate letters on the outside and a present on every floor. The boxes of chocolate letters will be the doors to the presents.
I'll make it from cardboard boxes on top of eachother, which will be covered with red paper maché. The light will be the blinking bicycle light in an old glass jar
And then I'll need to write a couple of poems. Nine days left, so wish me luck!
https://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2015/11/21/no-36-sinterklaas/