Pakjesavond

Emma and Janne apparently were very good girls this year, because Sinterklaas brought many great gifts on Friday, the eve of his birthday. At about 6 pm, someone (Black Peter?) nocked on the window very loudly, which startled us all. Emma quickly opened the curtains, but was too late to see Sinterklaas' black helper. When Janne opened the front door, a bag full of gifts was standing on our doorstep!
A bag full of presents from Sinterklaas

If we would have let them, Emma and Janne would have opened all the presents there and then :-) Instead, we had them open them inside, one present after another. Still, they unwrapped all gifts in the record time of about fifteen minutes ... The next day, we literally didn't do anything but play with all the new toys.
Hurry, hurry; there's more presents to unwrap

Sunday, we went to oma, to celebrate her 78th birthday. And what a surprise when we saw that Sinterklaas also delivered gifts for Emma and Janne at oma's house! Another fifteen minutes of frantically unwrapping presents were followed by cries of excitement, jumps for joy and requests for help (to take the packages off all the new toys). At the end of the afternoon we had a fun and delicious meal at the local 'Tasty Wok' restaurant with my mom and my sister and her family.
Look mom, Sinterklaas was here as well!

All (or at least most) of the gifts were real hits, so Sinterklaas did a great job at selecting presents once again. And now, after three weeks of excitement and anticipation, Sinterklaas is finally over ... Emma and Janne, as most kids in the Netherlands, will need a few good nights sleep to recover from it :-) Family dinner at the Tasty Wok