Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Eagerly awaiting with wildly beating heart...

...the coming of Saint Nicholas.


Expected time of arrival is around three O'clock this afternoon. The gifts are wrapped


the food is ready, and so are we!!!


In a great number of Dutch families, including ours, Saint Nicholas is bigger than Christmas. I've been busy crafting, cooking, and wrapping, and helping Saint Nicholas and his six to eight black men to pick out those perfect gifts for my nearest and dearest.

Six to eight black men??? I hear you ask puzzlingly... Let me explain. David Sedaris, who is fabulous, in case you didn't know already, wrote a story called "Six to Eight Black Men" and it describes perfectly the Dutch Saint Nicholas tradition. Read it or listen to him reading it to you. Enoy!


Yours awaiting eagerly with wildly beating heart,
Annemarie.

11 comments:

Giovanna said...

Have fun today - we celebrated last Sunday with the Dutch expats, and our 18yo son was on duty as one of the black men :-)

Margaret said...

Enjoy! Thanks for the audio too. I will listen to it later today. I'd love to learn more about your tradition.

Anneke said...

It's 3 o'clock pm Have fun!!

cucki said...

have fun dear..
love for you xxx

Anonymous said...

We have reluctantly had to push back our Sinterklaas activities to tomorrow, due to the kids being in a winter concert tonight. But we are all very excited!

Heidi Kuijer said...

Hallo Annemarie! Een fijne Sinterklaas avond...

Hugs en groetjes,
Heidi

Teri and the cats of Curlz and Swirlz said...

Love your 'Tree'!! The only thing I ever heard by David Sedaris was a not too funny story involving cats that turned me off of him, BUT I'ld love to learn more about your traditions, too...so I'll take a listen

Catherine said...

Sounds like fun!

Anna van Schurman said...

Pete and I listened to Six to Eight Black Men on a road trip. It still cracks me up.

Andrea said...

Have a wonderful holiday! It's so nice to see you posting, sorry I am not always able to comment...

Love, love, love David Sedaris, have every book of his and listened to him on audio, which is hysterical. One of my favorite stories by him is about his brother and the "f*ck-it bucket".....just too funny!

xoxo

Miss LindaLee said...

Hi AnneMarie. Great job on your blog. Keep up the great job. I have given you The Liebster award. Go to my blog to read about it.

LindaLee from Cross’N My Stitches