An International Student's Guide To Celebrating Sinterklaas

Samudraki's Saturdays

Sinterklaas is every Dutch child's favourite time of the year, filled with gifts, ginger cookies and songs! To most international student's its is better known as the Dutch version of Christmas, which many Dutch people hate the comparison to. However, I don't mind it so much because I see it as two Christmases in a month!!! Meaning double the gifts, song-singing and family time, and who wouldn't want that? This past week on December 5th marked Sinterklaas and as an international student who is also an adult, celebrating this kid's festival might not sound so interesting. Boy, are you wrong! Dutch students have found a way to celebrate this fun festival and re-live their childhood in a way that even as adults you can enjoy. So in this blog, I'll share my ideas on how I get my international friends to celebrate this festival with me.

#1 Christmas Tree

As a student you might not have a lot of room for a nice big Christmas tree. On the other hand, without the coziness of the tree lights December wont feel the same like at home. But don't worry, because you can always go with your Dutch friends to their house the weekend before Sinterklaas and help decorate their tree. This is also a really good way to get rid of any homesickness and spend some quality time with your friends. You can make ornaments together and bond over hot chocolate and giggles.

If you don't feel comfy going over, make your own Christmas tree with your other international friends in your student accommodation. A friend of mine was collecting empty beer cans for a week, and when I asked her the reason I was surprised by the creativity of her and her friends. They collected green beer cans and decided to make a Christmas tree by stacking the cans. This got them a really good Christmas story and quite frankly, I am curious as to how many trials it took them to stack all the cans without them falling over, hehe.

#2 Gifts Galore

What's Sinterklaas without gifts? In most cases due to high shipping costs we don't receive our Christmas gifts from home during this time of the year. In my case, I actually have to wait until I go home for the summer holidays to receive my gifts, which honestly sucks. A better idea is to have a secret santa game with all your friends so that you all get gifts on Sinterklaas. And to give it that extra special touch, you get unique sinterklaas-themed gift wrapping paper which makes it all the more fun.

Secret Santa with friends means there's a budget because let's face it, us students are broke haha. Over the years I have discovered that there are a couple of stores with special merchandise that makes for a great gift without a big price tag. For clothing, stores like Primark, Only and Zara have some crazy discounts and offers. You can actually even buy perfumes for cheaper during the first week of December. For games and fun activities So Lo, Flying Tiger and Action is your best bet. They have crazy board games and drinking games which will make a perfect gift for your whole friend group too. Lastly, Hema and H&M is your one-stop-shop for all things Sinterklaas with holiday-themed everything!!!

#3 Sweet Treats

Sinterklaas food means pepernoten, schuimpjes and chocolate alphabets. Van Delft is the original pepernoten store with a huge range of exotic and experimental flavours, giving the original cookies a run for their money! This year I went crazy at Van Delft and bought 5 packets of pepernoten. I couldn't stop myself from trying all the flavours in the store and then choosing my top favourites. In fact pepernoten goes surprisingly well with Indian Chai, and I am a big time Chai lover! Other than these famous treats the Dutch love Kerstkransjes (wreath cookies), Kerststol (fruit loaf), Appelbeignets (apple fritters) and Bischopswijn which is a Dutch mulled wine, just to name a few!

#5 Traditions

Putting A Carrot In The Shoes

This is an old tradition children have been doing on the eve of Sinterklaas and the story goes something like this. Sinterklaas Sinterklaas writes down whether the children have been naughty or nice in his red book. He rides a white horse and the children put carrots in their shoes for his horse, hoping that the next morning they will be replaced for presents if they have been nice this year.

Singing Sinterklaas Songs

Like Christmas carols, there are specific Sinterklaas songs that the Dutch sing which actually tells the story of the Sinterklaas, the Zwartepiet and the horse. The songs are normally sung by the fireplace. As students, I just start playing these songs in my room on full volume from 1st December to welcome the Sinterklaas spirit (and also to teach my international friends these songs by the time Sinterklaas gets here).

Writing Poems About Family and Friends

This tradition is more common in teenagers and us college kids as we use the tradition to write funny and slightly insulting poems about family members in a light-hearted way through poem writing. These are read aloud by the Christmas Tree and all family members can sometimes even get shameless. The same idea resonates with students as we get to pick on traits of our friends and make fun of them all in a good spirit.

Playing Games

Playing games is a more common tradition among young adults like us. There are plenty of card games, gift games and even drinking games that are popular among students. There is a very popular gift exchange game played with dice. The inner child in you always wants to play because it's all based on luck, and the bigger the group the higher your chances of winning lots of gifts. This year I won a bag full of gifts after playing games for almost 2 hours!!! The gifts were absoulety perfect to add to my collection of winter essentials.

So know you can also use these tips and tricks and not miss the opportunity to share the Dutch culture of Sinterklaas with your international friends! Happy Sinterklaas to everyone, hope you have a great experience full of laughs and yummy food! From decorating the tree, to singing childhood Sinterklaas songs, to exchanging gifts. This year's Sinterklaas was awesome! How was yours? Let me know in the comment section below!

SAMUDRAKI