December 6th, 2011

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December 5th Sinterklaasavond

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

I just skyped with Henny Haars-de Ruiter. She lives in Canada and was one of my very first loves when we were in the 2nd or 3rd grade of the Borsenburgerplein CUS middle school. see http://www.schoolbank.nl/security.html?_a=login&_auid=725E66A8-4B93-43CF-93F3-BC4721D88634&_ufb=803B7FC449CC49CAB979028BD445CCE8 We would have been around 14/15 years old. The picture below shows me and Henny, left lower insert, with our teacher Mijnheer Niesink. Far right lower corner is Agnes Rakers, I went to grade school with her, also in the bottom of the insert is Leo Ulrich and in the picture far left bottom is Henk Spruit also together fom 1st grade up.

We celebrated Sint Nikolaas here yesterday, his feastday, his death, is December 6th and the traditional holiday is the on the eve of the 6th th evening of December 5th. I had brought a chocolate image of St. Nic and his assistant “Black Peter” with me from Holland. Lisa and Rose Marie, my two oldest daughters and my grandchildren, Corrine, Elliott, Tyler and Olivia were here to help bake batches of Christmas cookies.

I sang in the choir at the 8.30 mass at St. Nicholas in Gig Harbor. Our offertory hymn was “Lo, How a Rose E’er blooming”. I had help from another tenor, Scott, and it all came off well. I knew the lines from previous practices. Sint Nikolaas comes to this parish every year in the person of parishoner Jim McDonnell an Irish American Catholic who married a Dutch lady he met when he served in the Armed Forces in Germany in the late fourties. He switches from his Sinterklaas costume into a Santa Claus outfit in the end.