Zwarte Pete's Visit

Zwarte Pete comes to visit ever Saturday night for 3 weeks before the Great arrival of Sinterklaas on December 5. The kids are suppose to leave there shoes out by the door with something in it for Sinterklaas and his horse. Zwarte Pete checks to see if you have been good and takes the items to Sinterklaas and leaves some little treat in your shoe.

Since we are not perfectly Dutch we do this a little different. We bought wooden shoes because the idea of putting treats in the shoes the girls have been wearing all day just really grossed us out. We put the wooden shoes on top of the dryer in the Attic next to the little skylight window. We told the girl the Zwarte Pete comes in threw that window and checks and sees if there room is clean and that is how he knows if they have been good. EVERY Saturday my girls clean there room with out complaint this time of year.

In the shoes they leave pictures for Sinterklaas and a list of what they would like him to bring. I can of course easily take these things from the shoes and put them into my "needs to be scrapbook box" in the attic. (The box is pretty full! It is sad how I don't scrap book, with out my friends and my sister it just isn't any fun doing it alone.)

Brian and I put little candies in there shoes for them to find on Sunday morning. They are extra excited about waking up for church!

On the Evening on December 5th they will also find a bag full of gifts sitting on the dryer up in the attic that Sinterklaas left while we were eating dinner. More like mom put there while they were at school but you know how it all works.

I did my Sinterklaas shopping this week. I'm proud to say that I was able to get some fun gifts for everyone for under 30 euro's. (think of it as dollars). We figure they will be getting gifts at Christmas too. We don't need to over kill on the holidays. Just a few from Sinterklaas will do. I did find some really good deals that I'm more then proud of. Especially on Brian's gift. I'm looking forward to it!