Sinterklaas

This was our first "Sinterklaas" weekend since moving to Orange City, since we were out of town last year. Ryan and I headed downtown to the 3:00 "parade" on Saturday afternoon. (Adam spent the afternoon putting furniture together for the nursery.) 

Basically, the parade is just the town crier heralding Sinterklaas' arrival on his white horse with his helper, Zwarte Piet.

 The crowd then walks behind Sinterklaas a few blocks down to City Hall.

As Sinterklaas (dressed in flowing robes) was descending from his horse, Ryan announced loudly, "Mommy! Sinterklaas is great at not tripping!" Always the encourager.

Once inside City Hall, the kids sat on the floor while a local Dutch-speaker teaches them how to say "Thank You" and "You're Welcome" in Dutch.

Next, there was a puppet and a shadow-play telling the story of Sinterklaas.

Then, the kids played a game and they announced the winners of the coloring contest, and they all left with a little bag of chocolate coins.

It's a fun little tradition and Ryan was pretty excited about seeing the horse and Sinterklaas. Since we aren't fully engrained into Orange City culture yet, we don't have wooden shoes to put hay and carrots in for Sinterklaas' horse on Dec. 5 and don't have presents planned for Dec. 6, but I'm sure Ryan will become more familiar with the traditions as he enters school.  This year, I was just grateful that it was above-50 with no snow since last year was near-blizzard conditions.

Happy Sinterklaas Day on Dec. 6!