My Dog Likes Avocado

We are fortunate here in K-W in that this month, apparently, Sinterklaas has visited not only on December 5th, but this past Sunday as well!  In fact, it has become a long-standing tradition (so far: two years!) for a few of our friends to gather and celebrate the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas. For those of you not informed about Nederlandic traditions, a quick primer:

Basically, Dec. 5 is “sinterklaasavond” (although in Belgium, they celebrate the morning of Dec. 6), when children receive presents from Sinterklaas. Before the blessed event, they must put their shoes out, filled with carrots and with water nearby for Amerigo, Sinterklaas’ horse.  That evening, SK and his helper, Zwarte Piet, travel up from Madrid in his steamboat, and distribute presents all around Holland. As the children get older, they can partake in the adult gift exchange, in which everyone receives a gift from “Sinterklaas” as well as a poem that pokes fun at the recipient in some way. It’s great fun, and a tradition that I’m glad we’ve adopted.

Our group was composed this time of mainly married couples, but two, and so Victor and Karishma were “married” honorarily for the day, and played their roles exceedingly well by showing up late and arguing over whose fault it was. :) We didn’t mind the wait so much as it meant we had a chance to eat all the wonderful Sinterklaas food prepared for us, including gevulde speculaas and other tasty treats:

And then, of course, on to the important part of the day: presents! Erik rolled 18 on the die, so went first. Sinterklaas was kind enough to recognize that the rider of his bicycle needed protection, and gave him this beautiful shirt, complete with flashing lights and horn!

Next up, Victor! For those of you who don’t know him that well, I need to explain that he likes to laugh. A lot. Sometimes, for reasons no one else can understand. :) I think we all got this joke, however:

Please notice the lovingly handcrafted Slanket(TM) over which Sinterklaas lost much sweat and tears (especially after his sewing machine broke, I hear). Also, please try NOT to notice the cut-off heads in some of these pictures – I’ve chosen to sacrifice integrity for conformity in this case, and can’t be bothered to fix them to fit at this time. :)

Victor chose a gift for John next, and it was just so beautiful that I feel I need to share the poem and associated content with you. First, the poem:

And next, the gift. John was the lucky recipient of a “Luggable Knowledge” unit! Much better than his iPhone, the Luggable Knowledge is “an easily extensible knowledgebase that you can lug around as easily as a shopping cart or a buggy”. What the hell, the documentation explained it a lot better than me:

As soon as I find a certain memory stick, I promise to upload a very entertaining video of John searching for this answer. In the meantime, a few more pictures will have to suffice:

At this point Laura got hungry and announced we needed to eat. She was over-ruled by the rest of us, but I think I need a snack so you’ll have to wait for post #2 to see the rest. :)

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 10:35 pm and is filed under geekness, my so-called life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.