Santa Encounters

We had a lot of fun chances to see good Old Saint Nick this year! The first was at our ward Christmas party where we saw a reindeer, an elf and Father Christmas! I didn't get a picture but Keith kissed the reindeer on the mouth!

We wrote Santa some letters with our wish lists and sent them off to the North Pole. A few days later he wrote us back and the kids got official certificates for being on the "nice" list. Way to go guys!

Jack did make the nice list (barely) but was napping when the mail came.
We also took the kids to the Utah Symphony to see Here Come Santa Claus. It was fun. They play familiar Christmas music and the kids get to sing along and ring bells.

The line to sit on Santa's lap was really long and we were so disappointed we didn't get to see him. But we hadn't been home more than 10 minutes when the doorbell rang and standing on our front porch was Santa himself with candy canes and oranges for the kids. They were ecstatic!

Merry Christmas!

Sinterklaas-A New Tradition!

This year we started a new tradition in the Nigbur house. My mom was born in Holland and we have a rich dutch heritage that is very fun & dear to me. Growing up we often celebrated Sinterklaas. On Dec. 5th Sinterklaas (or the dutch Santa Claus) would visit and fill up your wooden shoes with yummy dutch cookies & candies. He rides a white horse and has little black elves named Zwarte Piets, who if you're bad put you in their bag and take you to Spain! So last night at around 7:30 the doorbell rang and this was waiting for us on the front porch!
Wow! That was so nice of Sinterklaas to come all the way from Holland on his white horse & bring us these goodies! And we were so lucky to have escaped the dreaded Spain bag too! (Although I would love to visit Spain, so maybe next year I'll be a little more naughty!)

The kids LOVED it! They immediately ate about 10 pieces of chocolate & cookies and emptied their little containers to put other treasures in. So fun!

*Now I wish I could take credit for this creativity but I can't! Our adorable neighbors the Boogards did this for us. I need to remember & erase this * before our blog gets made into a yearly book! :) My kids are convinced that it is from the true Sinterklaas but really that sweet family gets all the credit! I told Anissa I've been meaning to do Sinterklaas for years (just like my dutiful sister does annually) but have never gotten around to it! Well now it's officially a new tradition thanks to them!

Happy Sinterklaas everyone! I'm off to eat more chocolate!