Merry Sinterklaas Avond! (St. Nicholas Eve)

Sinterklaas made a visit to our house last night! He is the Dutch Santa Clause. My dad's parents immigrated from Holland, and I have celebrated this holiday my whole life, and will continue it with my kids. On the eve of Dec. 5th, children in Holland leave their shoes by the fire place, or if you don't have one, by the front door. We always put our shoes outside our bedroom doors growing up. Then Sinterklaas comes with his white horse and if you're good, leaves candy and nuts in your shoes. But if you're bad, he leaves a bundle of sticks or a bag of salt. I guess you're supposed to leave some oats for his horse, but I don't remember if we ever did that growing up. Anyway, we traditionally get yummy goodies such as windmill cookies, nutella, and chocolate coins in our shoes. But Jack must not have been a very good boy this year, cuz he didn't get much. (Or maybe Sinterklaas forgot to get anything until late last night, hehe.) He got a little leftover Halloween candy and some magnet fridge letters that were supposed to go in his Christmas stocking. But all he cared about was the starbursts in the shoes. The magnets turned out to be a piece of crap, and worth the dollar that I paid for them. Half of them don't even stick to the fridge. But oh well. He just likes to rip them all off and throw them on the floor anyway. Maybe next year, when he understands it better, he'll get some better treats.