Sinterklaas Arrives in A'dam!

Last Sunday, on November 16th, we left our home to greet Sinterklaas as he arrived in Amsterdam. Sinterklaas is a different person from Santa Claus. Sinterklaas arrives from Spain via boat, accompanied by his assistants, all of whom are called Piet. On December 5th, we will celebrate Saint Nicholas' Eve (Sinterklaasavond), which is when Sinterklaas and the Piets bring gifts to children.





Liliane dressed up like a Piet and Amelie went as Sinterklaas. We got to the Scheepvaart Museum, where Sinterklaas' gigantic tugboat docked. Soon, a huge parade began, which consisted mostly of Piets doing all sorts of things - jump-roping, sweeping, chasing each other, unicycling, walking on stilts, springing high on special springs. The Piets would also run through and shake the hands of the children. For the kids, the most important thing the Piets did was hand out candy and pepernoten (small, gingerbread-like cookies). This caused an undercurrent of kids chanting "Piet, Piet, Piet" for the duration of the parade. There were a few floats, some bands and some vans called strooiwagens ("strewing cars," they held the pepernoten). At the end of the parade, Sinterklaas followed up grandly on a beautiful white horse.


Sinterklaas is on the bow.

Liliane celebrates his arrival!


Notice the Piets harassing the Pietzie (police).

the grand arrival



We decided not to even dare public transportation to get home, so we took a leisurely walk back. We stopped for lunch and at that time, we noticed the parade was coming past that location, so we ended up seeing it twice and the girls got even more pepernoten. It was a great celebration!




On the days leading up to St. Nicholas' Eve, Dutch television gives daily updates about his activities via the Sinterklaas Journaal. The Piets will be diligently putting together some elaborately wrapped 'surprises' (sir-pree-zes) along with poems from Sinterklaas. More updates on those after the big day!