I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

It was the first Christmas season that the ver Waarloosd family ever experienced outside the valley of the windmills.  Most of their experience in the small town where they went to high school was limited.  The valley of the windmill was absolutely a closed society.  The little town that profited by the valley was held to the rules of not mentioning Christmas, Christianity, etc. when at the school.  And even what their classmates experienced in the little town was limited.  You had to get to the bigger town, where the bus stop was located, the bus that brought them to Tracy, before you could start seeing the commercialization of Christmas.

The ver Waarloosd family only celebrated Sinterklaas on five December, and then with only receiving a new article of clothing, usually socks, a chocolate letter, and a shoe full of pepernoten and speculaas.  They usually got the letter that corresponded to the initial of their first name, but TomCat’s children got left over letters, since TomCat (that is Thomas and Catherine) had rebelled against the elders.  They did not rebel.  They asked questions, but that was not allowed.

We thought it a great idea to make a big deal out of Sinterklaas for everyone connected to the Mommie Club this year.  This year, the children would all receive a clean wooden shoe, small adult size.  They would be given a carrot and some hay to place in the wooden shoe.  They would put the wooden shoes just outside their apartment doors, for those who live in the Lily the Pink campus.  The parents outside the campus would have to figure it out for themselves.

The next morning, each child would find the hay and carrot gone, and in the shoe would be pepernoten (gingerbread nuts, the size of quarters or half dollars) and speculaas (gingerbread cookies, in the shape of windmills).  Thomas ver Waarloosd and Mabel Washington have been collaborating on the recipe, and the Crystal Mountain has been smelling like gingerbread for weeks now.  Thomas feels that he already has his Christmas present, the windmill shaped cookie cutter.  But he will get a bigger surprise.

Also in the shoe will be each initial of their names and beside the shoe will be a toy or a ball.  Even the children under twenty-one will get something.  In the Netherlands, usually twelve is the cutoff, but this was special, this first year of doing the tradition correctly.

Sophia has volunteered to work with each child to paint something on their shoe that they like, at least the ones that can talk.  I thought she was overworked, but the idea is that the first year, their name will be written on the sole of the shoe.  Next year, with an entire year to prepare for it, Sophia would paint what they wanted.  Then, the look of the shoe would let everyone know whose shoe it was.

B.B. had already been busy.  She had purchased as many documentaries of Sinterklaas in Holland as possible.  She edited a report which she narrated about how Sinterklaas, Saint Nicholas of Myra in modern Türkiye, now Bishop Sinterklaas, living in Spain, had arrived by steamship in Tracy harbor (really arriving in the Netherlands).  B.B. talked about how Sinterklaas would arrive on a white horse named Ozosnel (“Oh, so fast”).  Amerigo was the horse until 2019, but she was “pensioned.”  She talked about how the carrot and hay were for Ozosnel, and Sinterklaas rewarded the children who fed his horse.  But if the children had been naughty, Sinterklaas had a servant named Zwarte Piet (Black Pete – black because of the Moors who live in Spain).  Zwarte Piet would grab the naughty children and put them in a sack.  And then he would take the sack back to Spain when Sinterklaas left on the steamship.

Then the video ends with Zwarte Piet leading Ozosnel up the driveway in front of Lily the Pink.  Sinterklaas was filmed descending from the horse.  Then the plan was for GrandPa, dressed as Sinterklaas in typical full length red robes of a bishop, to enter, followed by Zwarte Piet in a red Moorish costume.  Traditionally, Zwarte Piet was someone in “black face,” but with that considered offensive, the Dutch have less black, calling it soot from crawling in and out of chimneys.  We avoided that by having Georges Evident play the role.  He naturally had a dark mocha complexion with European facial features.  All he had to do was wear a very curly black wig, and the children seemed to not recognize him.

All the children would come up to Sinterklaas, and Sinterklaas would greet them and give them their wooden shoe.  In the shoe, there would be a small piece of chocolate.

Zwarte Piet stood beside Sinterklaas, looking very official.

Everything went fine until Thursday Wednesday got near the front of the line.  Thursday was the oldest of the Wednesday adopted children.  There were three adopted children, all from the same mother, a murdered woman in Stout County where Tuesday Wednesday detected the murderer and sent him to prison, but she had fallen in love with the orphaned children.  When she convinced her long-time boyfriend, Jim Wednesday, to marry her, the children, all from different fathers, became Thursday Wednesday (father Amerasian, a year older than the twins), Friday Wednesday (father African American), and Saturday Wednesday (the only girl, father from Peru, mostly, based on the DNA testing).

But back to Thursday, he slipped out of line and crawled into the sack next to Zwarte Piet.  The next part of this story is from Tuesday Wednesday who listened to her children’s conversation later.

Friday asked, “I thought you were on your way to Spain?”

Thursday nodded, “I was in the sack, being very quiet, and Zwarte Piet opened the sack and asked me what I was doing in the sack.  He even knew my name!  I said that I wanted to go to Spain.  I had never seen Spain before.  All I ever saw was Tracy and Stout County where Mommy works.  And I told him that he couldn’t take children in the USA.  It was called kidnapping.  He could only do that in Holland.  And then Zwarte Piet pulled out a badge that looked just like Daddy’s badge.  Zwarte Piet said that he had been deputized.  I knew what that meant, Mommy was a deputy until she became the unnersherf (undersheriff).  And then Zwarte Piet said that I wouldn’t like Spain.  There wasn’t any football in Spain.  They only played soccer.  I guess Zwarte Piet knows that stuff.  Maybe that’s why they call him ‘some more.’  He knows more stuff.”

(I suppose the children never heard of the Moors that invaded Spain.)

Friday gasped, “Wow!  A whole country that doesn’t play football.  Who could ever think of such a thing?”

Saturday chimed in, “And I hear it rains a lot there.”

Thursday asked, “How do you know that?”

Saturday said, “The teacher taught us a song.  ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the planes.’ So, if you go to Spain, avoid getting in an airplane.  You’ll get wet.”

Editor’s Note:  Saturday’s misquote is from The Rain in Spain, by Alan Jay Lerner, from My Fair Lady.  The lyric should end with plains.

At this point, Tuesday was shaking so hard from laughter, the three children thought she was sick.  They went to her aid, but she said she was just laughing at something she had just heard.

Saturday said, “We better listen to Ms. Mary (Mary Sheltie Jones, a.k.a. B.B.).  She must be telling some funny stories.”

Tuesday burst out in even harder laughter.  She wrapped the children in her arms, “I love all my children.”  Holiday, her biological child with Jim, looked at them, a little confused, but he was almost two and a half years younger than the twins.

If anyone recognized Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet, they did not say anything.  The children went to the entrance of the Big House at Lily the Pink, and there was a white horse in the lawn, tied off to the flagpole.

The ver Waarloosd children, at least Reuben and Samantha, were the most excited.  This was Levi’s first Christmas season, regardless.  They had the tradition of the shoes in the past, but they had never seen Sinterklaas face to face.  I was worried for them; they were so excited, it looked like they would burst at any moment.

Throughout the Lily the Pink campus that next morning, there were cries of joy as the children came out their apartments, or bedrooms for those in the Big House and Gwen’s house.  They saw the pepernoten and speculaas cookies, the chocolate letters, and one toy for each child.  For many it was the first Sinterklaas ever, but for the others, it was the best ever.

And I prayed that they would experience so many more “best days” too.

Credits

The story of Thursday climbing into the sack of Zwarte Piet is from my late wife.  When she was six and her brother was about eight (probably seven, but with a birthday within the first five weeks of the year), her older brother climbed into the sack because he’d never been to Spain.  He was unsuccessful as he was quickly found out.  He might have been found out by my wife breaking down and crying, afraid she’d never see her brother again.

This was a story in honor of my naughty brother-in-law and in memory of my wife, who somehow loved her brother and me too.

Regardless of your traditions, or whether you celebrate Sinterklaas – in part to keep Christmas a religious holiday – have a…

fijne Sinterklaasdag

Happy Sinterklaas Day

And as always,

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.