I know it is controversial these days but from when I was a little girl we always celebrated Sinterklaas and I have the most happy memories about those 3 weeks in the year. The big department stores had made great displays in their shop-windows and the children could visit Sinterklaas there just as it is with Santa now. My grandparents always came to our house to take part. Most kids lost their faith in Sinterklaas when they were between 6 and 8 years of age and you were wondering how it was possible that Sinterklaas was in 2 different locations on the same time and wasn't looking like it was the same person. Sometimes you recognized the person playing the role of Sinterklaas was someone you knew, or you wondered how the presents arrived through the chimney when you lived in an apartment building. But after the shock of finding out, the great fun started, because you were considered old enough to start making surprise gifts for the rest of the family. Most of the time we draw lots with the name of one of the family members for whom you had to buy a present and transform it into a surprise gift which had to be accompanied with a poem. In the poem you could make fun of that person, or comment on something that had happened and you weren't happy with. But never nasty! Later we kept this tradition with our own children until our daughter moved to Switzerland where they don't know this tradition and our son didn't want to go on without his sister and my parents were to old to come because they didn't lived in the neighborhood.