31 Days...December 5th

Today is the official day that St. Nick (Sinterklaas in Dutch), who celebrates his birthday on December 6th, gives all the children presents. This is still traditionally the day in Holland that most people celebrate the event. However, I needed that extra day to get organised, as this will be our Christmas celebration for at home too. During Christmas we will be 10k Miles across the oceans and we cannot possibly take all the presents with us. But we did it, we explained why St. Nick is a day late (in a traditional poem) and we've hidden the presents which will coincidentally be discovered tomorrow afternoon when David comes home. They will already receive one present with a chocolate letter and pepernoten (both traditional sweets for this time of year) in the morning in their shoe, which they left by the chimney tonight. Let's see what their reaction will be in the morning.




Journaling on picture is in Dutch and reads:
Vol verwachting klopt ons hart, which is a line from a traditional Sinterklaas song and means 'in anticipation our heart beats'.



Journaling:
In anticipation of tomorrow's event, I've put the last hand on getting everything ready. I know a big weight will be lifted off my shoulders. The children finished their collages today and they look great. The children put their shoes by the chimney tonight.

Here's a close-up of the reindeer collage. The design comes from this book. The original design is with fabric, but I just used cardstock. Also, we didn't sew the stitches for the eyes, spots or tree trunks, we used pens. I enlarged the drawing with the reindeer pieces at 300% which made it the perfect size. The children enjoyed putting them together too. For the background and Rudolph's nose I used glitter embossing powder.