After seeing Sinterklaas’ arrival speech in Antwerp on the 14th, the season got underway (see Lier, etc, post for more on the holiday). There were Zwarte Pieten everywhere. Here are some playing in a band in the mall.
And Ivo’s work threw a Sinterklaas party on the 21st for all the employees’ kids. Liam was mostly interested in the other stuff, like the magician who did the warm-up act’s drum.
He definitely wasn’t among the kids thronging around the Sint when he arrived.
He did eat some of the candy, but kept giving it away to other children.
And preferred to play on this thing and running up and down the hallways to taking part in the festivities.
After the work party, Ivo had a political thing to do, so I joined Angie and her family for Sinterklaas’ arrival in Utrecht. Thankfully they could help with Liam chasing duty. Sinterklaas came by boat along the canal, then came up into the city and took a carriage.
And Sander helped with carrying Liam when it got too much for pregnant me.
Liam did start to get into it when, only a few nights before the 5th, cookies started appearing in his shoes in the morning. We might have started earlier, but Liam and I got sick just after Thanksgiving, for a whole weekend when Ivo was away with his family, and we didn’t recover fully until shortly before the day. It’s OK though, we got the tradition started anyway. And we did celebrate pakjesavond (the present night). Ivo and Liam sang Sinterklaas songs in the evening and then heard a knock on the door just before cookies were thrown in the room. Then the inexperienced helper threw the sack in too (not realizing that it should stay in the hall or outside), and scared Liam to bits. The helper will know better next year. But Liam recovered once presents started coming out of the sack.
Sinterklaas knew very well what Liam wanted – we’d borrowed this train from the Speelotheek (like a library for toys) and Liam loved it, even crying when it had to go back.
Liam even got some of Papa’s chocolate letter.
The next day, the train was still a hit.
And Liam was pretty cute.
