After Nicole and Jorick have put the red balloon, found in Alma Zoo, in their shoe, they got some presents and finally Sinterklaas didn’t forget them.

On 30 November Sinterklaas visited Brisbane for a few hours at the Dutch Club.  Already earlier we have visited the Dutch club for “Koninginnefeest” (Queen’s Birthday) and with Easter (with hidden eggs). Both Jorick and Nicole got a present from the Dutch Saint.

On Saturday morning the 6th of December we heard on the Sinterklaas journal that the Boat with packages had returned to Sinterklaas. Soon after that Nicole found the “De Zak van Sinterklaas” (the bag from Sinterklaas) in front of the main entrance, so they were very exited. They were very happy with the presents like the diving equiment, the Insect Catcher and SuperMan suit.

Schools in Australia are now getting closed for the long summer holidays that have started. The closing took place with some celebrations and ceremonies with the presentation of certificates being part of it. The children like it to have 7 weeks off and we have already planned several things to do. 

Again we went to the Queensland State Library where the children love to do creative art, followed by a visit to the Queensland Museum.

Already long before Christmas there are many Christmas Carols events each weekend. From Genesis/BrayPark a Christmas Carols event was organized at the local Warner shopping center with songs and several events (playgrounds, jumping castle, face painting, 4WD info, etc. Nicole participated in the choir and had been practicing for weeks. Songs as “Jingle Bell”, “Rudolf the Red nose Reindeer”, “We wish you a merry Christmas”, … were part of the program. Finally when the main program was started, it had to be closed down after half an hour due to extreme tropical thunderstorms and lightnings. It was a pity.

Last Sunday (14th of December) we have been setting up our Christmas tree. It was bizarre to do this with the air-conditioning on and an outside temperature of 34 degrees. It’s our Dutch Christmas Tree so we are lucky that it still didn’t melt down. Perhaps we should forget all about a white Christmas this year.

Dear all, We wish you all a Merry Christmas with many blessings.

Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick.

Remark: The 20 November post has been added recently. Please scroll down in case you missed it.