How far will you go to maintain the Christmas magic?

You might have noticed: it's nearly December. Pre-Christmas excitement is building here at Potski Mansions, and I'm just waiting for the first request to watch The Polar Express on dvd.

The Boys love it so much that they would watch it every week of the year given half a chance, so a couple of years back I embargo'd this one and now they can only watch it during Advent. I mean, I like the movie myself, sure, but there are only so many 4 year-old impromptu imitations of Tom Hanks performing 'Hot! Hot! Hot Chocolate!' that a woman can take - especially in June...

In any case, I was wondering; have you told your children there's no Santa yet? Even if they're teenagers, I'm betting that you haven't; most kids work it out for themselves sometime before they leave home, and no parent wants to be the one to burst the bubble of the true believer in Father Christmas.

Not, that is, unless you are the husband of a friend of mine who decided when his son reached 8 years old that enough was enough, and that he wasn't going to have a son who was the only boy in the class who still believed. So he took matters into his own hands and told him that Santa didn't exist. He subsequently became persona-non-grata in the neighbourhood where, it turned out, all the children did still buy into the myth; or rather, they did until my friend's son shared his new information with them. There were a lot of sobbing children - and unhappy parents - in town that Christmas, I'm told...

Here in the Potski Familiski, however, we don't only have the Father Christmas myth to tend to. For let it never be said that we forget that whilst they may have been born and brought up (until last January, anyway) in jolly old Blighty, Boys #1 and #2 are, in fact, half Dutch. (Or at least, we don't ignore it all the time.) And at this time of the year, that means only one thing to two small boys; a double whammy on the present front. For not only are they meticulously planning their Christmas lists for the 25th December, there is - deep joy - another gifting opportunity happening before that.

Oh yes, jongens: The Sint is on his way.

The Daddy of our benevolent Father Christmas, Sinter Klaas, hits town for his big engagement on December 5th. Admittedly, by 'town' I mostly mean 'anywhere in The Netherlands', but he has also been known to visit Dutch outposts across the globe to spread the good news and deliver presents and pepernoten* to the faithful. Such as, anywhere we happen to be. Now, I'm not going to go into great detail on the traditions and background to this festival (I've already done that here if you're interested), but there is an intrinsic part of it which, for children, is almost as important as the actual presents, and that is the visit of Zwarte Piet.

Piet (or rather, the Piets - plural) are Sinter Klaas's helpers. In actual fact, I suppose they are also his spies, for they arrive on the scene 3 or 4 weeks before December 5th and their job - in addition to running the Sint's errands and carrying presents etc - is to keep an eye on children and work out who's been naughty, and who's been nice, so the big man can decide who gets presents and who doesn't. One of the ways that they do that is to visit children's homes when everyone in it is asleep once or twice in the run-up to the big day, to check that their toys are tidy and they have been doing their chores etc. It's a great way to get stuff put away before bedtime, I can tell you.

Of course, this is a reciprocal arrangement. The children, expecting these visits, will leave out a note asking for their preferred gift from Sinter Klaas and obviously a shoe (because, why not?) in which they will leave the note and a carrot for the Sint's white horse. (Not sure why the carrot, since the Sint is not actually present on this visit but it doesn't do to ask too many questions, I find...). Assuming the kids have fulfilled their side of the bargain, Zwarte Piet will leave them some sweets and pepernoten.

So far, so good. But Piet can be a mischevious little bugger. So when he visits, he doesn't just take the letters, leave the sweets, and head out. No, he likes to leave his mark, so he mixes it up a bit. He puts things where they shouldn't be, tables on chairs, cushions on the floor, toys upside down in piles etc etc, and throws the sweets and biscuits all over the floor (this bit is particularly troubling if you have a rodent problem as of course you know they're all waiting for Piet's visits in just as excited a frame of mind as the kids...). Then, when your children get up in the morning, they're not quite speechless with excitement, and in addition to dealing with the sugar high before breakfast from all the goodies they gobbled up before you stagger out of bed, you also have to re-tidy the house that you so carefully (and quietly) messed up the night before.

Which in itself, is fine. I'm happy to do that - wait until my bedtime and throw a few sweets around, mess the place up, return the carrot to the vegetable basket and so on - to maintain the magic for my kids. But I do find it all a little galling when, after a busy day of play-dates, I confront my older son about the mess in the sitting room and am told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't him who made it, honest guv. The person who scattered the lego behind the sofa, the trains across the floor, and pulled the books off the shelves was - of course - Zwarte Piet.

Because, what am I going to say in reply? 'I know it wasn't, you little monster, because actually, I am Zwarte Piet and I didn't make that mess?'

I don't think so.

Not this year, anyway.

*Pepernoten are small brown round biscuits about the same diameter as 1p or 1€c coin, that disconcertingly resemble animal droppings, but which - thankfully - taste better than they look.