So this christmas will be our very first christmas not traveling to the ends of the earth on budget airlines dragging the poor child with us. To be selfishly honest I am so looking forward to it, I can enjoy the run up to christmas, get my own christmas shop, put up our tree with enthusiasm. LPV’s first christmas in his own house, so I want to start some of our own family traditions.

Theyre not big on Christmas here, they obviously have their own dutch traditions, which will be fun learning about and hopefully getting involved with. The dutch do have christmas, obviously Christ didn’t have two birthdays did he?? But they don’t do presents etc on 25th, their Christmas starts when this dude rolls into town in November

This is Sinterklass , he usually arrive mid Nov on a boat from Spain (??) it’s a huge day, everybody gather round to greet him and his….Um….Slave..Zwarte Peit but for the purpose of polical correctness and just modern decency let call him his buissness partner?? When he arrives Peit throws candy and gingerbread into the crowd. Sounds fun doesn’t it? Im sure it is and will be. The weeks that Sint & Peit Ziddy are here children generally leave out a shoe with some carrot or hay for Sinterklass’ horse, the shoe gets left near the fire or central heat boiler…wait it gets better.

There’s a vicious rumor that says poor old Peit carries around a broom to spank the child that are naughty, plus it’s been said that he takes really naughty children in his bag and takes them back to Spain on the boat. So far not a big fan of Peit, think he’s drawn the short straw he clearly does all the hard graft and gets a raw deal in the process.

I am looking forward to getting LPV involved in this tradition although they are some things that I may sugar coat to protect his innocence. Purely as as fun as it will be, I’m not a big fan of slavery, racism and child abduction although LPV may well eat his dinner if I tell him about the Spain thing,