The Merry Season of Sint

It was a busy, joyful season of Sinterklaas this year. Everything was back after a 2 year COVID hiatus and we soaked it all in. We know that we don't have many years left with believing kids. 

We watched the Sinterklaas Journal, following Sint's challenging journey from Spain. We consoled Maeve when Sint's boat sank (yikes!) and patted ourselves on the back for understanding more and more Dutch. 

We went to Lien's to watch the Amstelveen parade. Maeve had a sneak peek (and 2 bags of pepernoten) after her gymnastics teacher took the class to the parade start without telling any of the parents! 

The following day we biked into the city for the Amsterdam parade. Another gorgeous, warm day!

We missed the boat parade but saw a group of piets disembarking and followed them to Waterlooplein, where Sinterklaas was getting ready for the walking parade. 

Hats full of pepernoten

A visit to the hermitage museum while we were in the city

And so began the 3-week-long season. They choose 5 nights for the piets to visit and excitedly woke up to see what they brought.  

Maeve wore this outfit to school. A lot.

We returned to Archeon where they transformed the open-air museum into "het stad van Sinterklaas." There were a lot of cute activities for the kids to do- pieten training, metalwork, face painting, and bracelet making. After they completed all of the activities, they brought their checklist to Sinterklaas' house and presented it to the hoofpiet, who signed the executive order, declaring them piets. There was a pietenkort (piet shortage) this year due to the boat sinking debacle, so they were hiring a lot of piets this year!

Flat Zoe arrived from Austria and traveled with us

Hard at work with the pieten training

Lovely renditions of the classic Sint songs

Maeve became the new hoofpiet (head piet)! 

And Jude, a pakjespiet

Then on December 5th, Sinterklaas and the piets visited ISA (he makes it to every primary school in the NL if you can believe it!). The kids sang songs for him while bouncing around the parking lot to stay warm.

Some photos of his visit to the 3rd grade. Jude declared that he was not the real Sint, as they could see a string under his beard. Whoops! 

That evening was pakjesavond (present night) and Sint came! We heard a loud banging at the door and then the Sinterklaas bag magically showed up on our doorstep. Jude noticed someone running away, but couldn't tell if it was a piet or Sint. 

Happy kids with their presents. 

Thank you for coming, Sinterklaas. We'll see you next year!