After a day of preparing food, delivering and lighting luminaries and wrapping gifts, we all sat down for our family's big Christmas Eve dinner. One of our traditions (aside from having the exact same food for dinner each year) is to have a gift wrapped on each of the children's (or in our case now - adult children) dinner plates, it is always a book and we open them from youngest to oldest. Here we are in anticipation of opening the gifts and especially eating!
Jeske started off by opening her book ("The Night Before Christmas") and then got sick and had to miss the rest of the dinner. I didn't realize what kind of reaction that book would have on her. Luckily she felt better the next morning and no one else got sick the remainder of their visit here.
As you can see in the background, Jason made a brief appearance.
After dinner we take a traditional walk through the neighborhood and gaze at all the beautiful luminaries. But this year before we got a chance to go, there was a knock at the door, the door was opened and candy thrown into our house and a bag was left on the doorstep.
Sinter Klaas (Santa Claus) and his helper, Black Pete, had found our house clear from the Netherlands!
Here is the bag of presents
Sinter Klaas left and you can see him in his traditional red Bishop's robe. In the Netherlands,
Sinter Klaas, Pete and
Sinter Klaas' horse live in Spain and sail to Amsterdam sometime the end of November and then come to
every one's house on December 5, the night before
Sinter Klaas' birthday. Christmas Day is much quieter there with family dinners and church attendance; all the presents and celebration are done earlier in the month.
This year Christmas Eve was a beautiful night and not too cold so we took a good long walk amongst the lights and luminaries. All our Dutch friends were in awe at how beautiful it looked. It is a wonder that a paper bag, some sand and a candle can make such a beautiful spectacle. After our walk,
Jip distributed the presents from
Sinter Klaas. Amazingly, all the presents were from the Netherlands.
How lucky our family was to learn and share Dutch and American traditions with Rob and Anita's family.
As you can see in the background, Jason made a brief appearance.
After dinner we take a traditional walk through the neighborhood and gaze at all the beautiful luminaries. But this year before we got a chance to go, there was a knock at the door, the door was opened and candy thrown into our house and a bag was left on the doorstep. Sinter Klaas (Santa Claus) and his helper, Black Pete, had found our house clear from the Netherlands!
Here is the bag of presents Sinter Klaas left and you can see him in his traditional red Bishop's robe. In the Netherlands, Sinter Klaas, Pete and Sinter Klaas' horse live in Spain and sail to Amsterdam sometime the end of November and then come to every one's house on December 5, the night before Sinter Klaas' birthday. Christmas Day is much quieter there with family dinners and church attendance; all the presents and celebration are done earlier in the month.
This year Christmas Eve was a beautiful night and not too cold so we took a good long walk amongst the lights and luminaries. All our Dutch friends were in awe at how beautiful it looked. It is a wonder that a paper bag, some sand and a candle can make such a beautiful spectacle. After our walk, Jip distributed the presents from Sinter Klaas. Amazingly, all the presents were from the Netherlands.
How lucky our family was to learn and share Dutch and American traditions with Rob and Anita's family.
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