For the Dutch this month meant that Sinterklaas would bring us gifts if we were good kids. We sang in anticipation and put out our shoe, with a carrot for his horse, and rush to bed because he will not come when the kiddies are awake.
The next morning we will find a heap of presents and candy. As we get older, the belief in the man fades but we still want to celebrate the day so we make up surprises for the people in your family. You will get a random picked name and you'll buy that person a gift and write a poem that contains a funny story or something that they will recognise in themselves when reading.
Sadly I am not able to participate in this any more since I live in Belfast but my mother was so kind to send me all the good candy related to this. Chocolate letters, speculaas, pepernoten and strooigoed.
But how do the Dutch celebrate Christmas. I cannot tell you what the real Dutch tradition is but I can tell you how we would celebrate it at home.
We do not put up our Christmas tree until after Sinterklaas leaves. So the 7th of December is usually the time to bring out the Christmas decorations. My family tree has decorations that are over 62 years old. We inherited them from my father's mother. And each year some break when setting up the tree, so we buy new decorations to replace the broken ones.
My mother usually buys kerststerren for our house and as gifts for relatives. I really love these red flowers and they make a beautiful centrepiece.
The Christmas wreath will be hanged on the door and we start writing our cards for friends and family. We start early because our postal services is crammed with mail during this season and you want everyone to get their card on time.
One Christmas eve we would sometimes go to evening mass and wish everyone a happy holidays while my father would cook a nice dinner. It is my dad's tradition to always cook the dinners for Christmas. Rabbit stew, tenderloin, haricot verts wrapped with bacon, potato balls and poached pears.
After we ate that amount of food we still manage to stuff ourselves with Vienetta ice cream cake. For us Dutch it is the season of food.
Christmas day usually starts with a special breakfast with croissants and luxurious bread and cold cuts and if you didn't go to church the evening before we would go for the morning mass. Lunch is also very heavy and dinner will be the same as the evening before but then with different meat like steak and game meat.
We would then watch the Christmas movies our channels would serve us or play boardgames.
Second day of Christmas, or Boxing day, you would go visit your grandparents or visit the in-laws and have the same food-fest all over again. We would sometimes go out to a fancy restaurant.
But we end up looking like this man after three days of eating. ;)
'Just one wafer-thin mint'
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