Sinterklaas Day!!

We celebrated Sinterklaas day for the first time this year. For those of you unfamiliar with the day, its a holiday celebrated in Holland. The idea of Santa Claus (Sinterklaas) actually originated in Holland when St. Nicholas would bring toys to orphan children. I dont really now the full story. Now kids put out their klompen (sp?) (wooden shoes) in hopes of recieving a treat for being good instead of a piece of coal. I guess part of the fun of the day is to make the gifts you give each other as hard to find as possible, even hiding it in wet sand, yuck!, and often ends up in a scavenger hunt of sorts. So we did that with Madison. I was surprised at how quickly and well she caught on. She LOVED it! She would run from clue to clue giggling. At the end she found a chocolate santa.
The other tradition of Sinterklaas day is making Speculaas cookies (windmill cookies). We didnt have a wooden mold or even cookie cutters, so we had to settle for biscuit cutters. Madi enjoyed helping me roll the dough and using the cutter and putting almond slices on top. Then I had to teach Madison the right way to eat windmill cookies- Dunked in Milk! Whoever said Oreos were milks favorite cookie never dunked a windmill cookie! Mmmm! It was my first time making them and they turned out surprisingly very similar to the originals, just maybe not as thick, mine spread more than anticipated in the oven. A fun day, I think this tradition is a keeper! Maybe next year we will try to make one giant one like we used to get from Grandma Vanderbilt!