Every year from December 1st through the 24th, we count down to Christmas with a fun little advent calendar. In each pocket is a little paper that says what that days Christmas activity is going to be. The kids have a lot of fun with this and look forward to it every year. (Thanks, Aunt Becky for inspiring me many years ago!)
Aaron's family is Dutch. His dad was born in the Netherlands, and his mom's family is Dutch-American on both sides. It's kind of strange when you think about it, since our last name is obviously French. So going back a few generations, my father-in-laws family, the LeGrands, were from France, but they immigrated to the Netherlands, which explains how this Dutch family has a French last name, or, depending on how you look at it, how this French family ended up calling themselves Dutch.
Anyway, the Dutch have a tradition that on the evening of December 5th, all of the children put their wooden shoes outside, and Sinterklaas comes and puts treats and toys in them for the children to find in the morning. Aaron's family never did this when he was growing up, but I wanted our kids to experience it, and give them a little bit of their Dutch (nee French) heritage, so we started doing this about 3 years ago. And yes, they have their own wooden shoes! Raegan's are from Holland, MI, and the boys are from plain Holland! And so on the 5th and 6th of December every year, our advent activity is to put out their wooden shoes for Sinterklaas, and get treats!
Aaron's family is Dutch. His dad was born in the Netherlands, and his mom's family is Dutch-American on both sides. It's kind of strange when you think about it, since our last name is obviously French. So going back a few generations, my father-in-laws family, the LeGrands, were from France, but they immigrated to the Netherlands, which explains how this Dutch family has a French last name, or, depending on how you look at it, how this French family ended up calling themselves Dutch.
Anyway, the Dutch have a tradition that on the evening of December 5th, all of the children put their wooden shoes outside, and Sinterklaas comes and puts treats and toys in them for the children to find in the morning. Aaron's family never did this when he was growing up, but I wanted our kids to experience it, and give them a little bit of their Dutch (nee French) heritage, so we started doing this about 3 years ago. And yes, they have their own wooden shoes! Raegan's are from Holland, MI, and the boys are from plain Holland! And so on the 5th and 6th of December every year, our advent activity is to put out their wooden shoes for Sinterklaas, and get treats!
Did Sinterklaas come?
He sure did!
He brought them authentic Dutch chocolates and Dutch stroopwafels! (Sinterklaas tries really hard each year to bring them REAL treats from the Netherlands!)
This was breakfast for the day!
Thanks, Sinterklaas!
3 comments:
Too cute! I bet your kids love that. I always have big plans to do the advent calendar or something every day before christmas...ten years later, it still hasn't happened.. oh well.
I want to do that advent thing, but I am not that good at planning ahead! Maybe next year. That is really cute.
That is totally great!
My honey is Norwegian, but I don't know any christmas traditions I should really research it.
I love that you do that for your kids!
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