Officialy we celebrate Sinterklaas' birthday on the 5th of december. But since Sunday is a more convenient day to get together, we handed out presents today. (FYI Saint Nick is what we like to call the original Santa Clause. He doesn't just deliver presents, but he writes poetry and occasionally makes surprise-gifts to memorate special events that happened to people in the past year) For the first time in years no-one was travelling the world in december, so we all went to mom's house today to have a party. Here are the pictures.

First some of the surprise gifts before unwrapping:


A waterpipe for Rianne to remind her of the trip she made to in Turkey with Hans;-)



A library full of important dutch writers (Nederbieb) for Gayleen, 'cause she wants to catch up with our literature.



A Big Apple for Hans, since he's planning to finish his study (artificial intelligence) on an internship in New York next May.


And some pictures of the collection of presents Sinterklaas b(r)ought us this year:


We wonder what's under the sheets? From left to right: Gayleen, Jaap, Rianne, Judith and Hans



Tadaah: loads and loads of presents! ('Cause we all behaved so very well this year;-)
Can we start the unwrapping now, mom?


Let the fun begin...


Gayleen reads Saint Nick's poem about dutch literature



Jaap tries to figure out how to use his safari-survival spray (surprisegift to remind him about his trip to Tanzania and Kenya, where the animals came too close to take a good picture (how dissapointing is that?;-)


Gayleen asked for a funky hat, this is the surprise version, inside Sint hid an adorable one.



A suprise cuddly animal for me, filled with lots of presents! (So I got to kill it, woohoo:)



Jaap and Gayleen are looking for a new house, Sint made them a one out of candy.



Rianne got a surprise graduation cap for her succes in university this year.



Mom had a lot of trouble finding a save parkingspot for her regular bike, so she got a foldable easy travel bike, that she can carry with her.


Sint hid the present under the bike.


Hans taking a bite out of the Big Apple, inside was a book 'not for tourists' about New York.


We had a great time: thanks a lot Sinterklaas!