Wednesday, November 22, 2006

dank u sinterklaasje!


He's back! The man we all love so much: Sinterklaas. He actually lives in Spain for most of the year, but once a year, in November, he comes to Holland and gives presents to all the Dutch children. He doesn't do that on his own off course, he's quite old (about 1735 years). He always takes his helpers with him, the "Zwarte Pieten", lots of black men in colourfull clothes with feathers on their hats. The Zwarte Pieten help Sinterklaas when he rides his white horse across the roofs of our houses to throw the presents down our chimneys ( he may just be related to Santa Claus). Oh, and they arrive in a big steamboat, the "pakjesboot".

The girls have been waiting for him to arrive for weeks, so we are all glad that he's finally here... When he's in Holland the children will put their shoe in front of the fireplace/radiator/door with a little something for the horse in it, like a carrot and some hay and of course a drawing and a wishlist for Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet, and then, magically, they will find some goodies in their shoe when they wake up in the morning. The real party doesn't begin until the fifth of December, when it's Sinterklaas' birthday. That's when the big presents arrive. They are usually left at the front door of the house after some very loud knocking on the door and windows. You understand that our children are nervous wrecks after december 5th, so the parents are even happier when he (misteriously) leaves again than when he arrived.

Even though he's really here for the children, look what he brought me:



Actually, I got it myself, after a bit of a misunderstanding with Peter, because I was supposed to wait until my birthday. I think we're okay now and I am very happy with it. It's a Louet S51, similar to the one I borrowed from my friend. I bought it second hand so it was a good buy, it looks really new. Last night I spent some time with it. I'm trying to get two decent singles done, because I can hardly wait to start plying so I can finally see if what I've been doing was right.

















I'm sorry my pictures are so lousy, I hope we'll be able to buy a decent camera some day.

And then there are the socks I knit for Maud a few weeks ago. I promised I would post some pictures, so here they are, with and without shoes:


















It's really cold and whet today, so I'm going to drink my "anijsmelk" ( hot milk with sugarlumps which have aniseed in them) and have some speculaas with that, perfect for this time of the year.

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