Questions to ask at St Nicholas: Sinterklaas memories from parents, grandparents and friends

Short answer: Ask about the St Nicholas evenings people remember from childhood: the shoe by the fireplace, the songs, the poems, the presents and the moment they stopped believing. Pick five questions, ask them while the sweets go round, and record the answers on your phone with permission.

Last updated: 3 November 2026.

Sinterklaas is the children's feast of the Netherlands and Flanders: on the evening of 5 December in the Netherlands, or the morning of 6 December in Belgium, presents arrive from the old bishop and his helpers. In Germany, Luxembourg, Lorraine and other places, St Nicholas fills shoes or boots on the night of 5 to 6 December. Whatever form it took, most people who grew up with it have a story: the knock on the door, the sack, the poem that teased them.

That makes it a good evening to ask. Everyone is together, the children are busy, and the questions below need no preparation. They work for parents and grandparents, and just as well for friends or colleagues who draw names and write poems for each other.

How to ask

• Start with an object. A chocolate letter, a child's shoe or a photo from an old St Nicholas evening gets people talking faster than any question.
• Ask the oldest first, while the children are busy. Grandparents may remember years when an orange and a few nuts were the whole present.
• Let a grandchild ask. A question read from a card by a child often gets a warmer answer than one from an adult.
• Keep the magic. If young children are listening, save the questions about finding out for later in the evening.
• Ask for one detail. After each answer, ask who was there, what it looked like or what it smelled like. That is where the story is.

When you were small

1. What did St Nicholas evening look like at home when you were a child?
2. Where did you put your shoe, and what did you leave in it for the horse?
3. Which songs did you sing, and do you still know the words?
4. How did you know he had been: a knock on the door, a sack on the doorstep, sweets thrown into the room?
5. What is the first present from St Nicholas you remember?
6. Who in the family played St Nicholas or one of his helpers, and did you recognise them?
7. What did it smell like at home on that evening?
8. Was there a year that was different, with fewer presents or someone missing?

Sweets, poems and surprises

1. Which sweets belonged to St Nicholas for you: speculaas, chocolate letters, marzipan, pepernoten?
2. Did you get a chocolate letter, and was it always your own initial?
3. Did your family write poems? Who wrote the best ones, and who the most teasing?
4. Do you remember a poem that made everyone laugh, or one that went a little too far?
5. What was the most elaborate surprise, a present hidden in something homemade, that you ever made or received?
6. Was there a present you secretly hoped for and never got?
7. Which present did you keep for years?

Believing and finding out

1. How old were you when you found out, and how did it happen?
2. Did you keep playing along for younger brothers, sisters or cousins?
3. Did you ever see St Nicholas arrive in town, by boat or on his horse?
4. Did he visit your school or class, and what happened?
5. How did you feel when you knew: disappointed, proud, relieved?

Then and now

1. How did St Nicholas change when you had children of your own?
2. What do you do differently from your parents, and what exactly the same?
3. Which tradition from your childhood would you like to bring back?
4. Roughly what did a present cost back then, and what could you get for it?
5. What is the best present you ever gave someone at St Nicholas?
6. Which St Nicholas evening do you remember best, and why that one?

For friends and colleagues

1. Who was the best poet in your group of friends or at work?
2. What is the strangest present that ever went round at a name draw?
3. Which St Nicholas evening with friends do you still talk about?
4. If you could write one poem for someone at this table, who would it be for?

Recording and keeping the answers

• Ask first. Say why you would like to record: so the stories are not lost, and so others can hear them later. If someone prefers not to be recorded, write down a few words afterwards instead.
• Use the voice recorder on your phone and put the phone on the table, not in your hand. After a few minutes people forget it is there. A voice says more than a perfect transcript.
• Write down the basics the same day: who answered, the date, the place and the names that came up. Without names and a date, a recording is hard to place ten years from now.
• Photograph the photos and objects that were passed around, and keep them with the recording.
• Keep two copies in two places, and send them to the people who were there.

A place for the answers

If you want one place for the answers, The Memory Palace is made for this: your own 3D palace with rooms you walk through, where photos, voice recordings, videos and written stories hang side by side. You can make a room for this St Nicholas evening, write the questions and answers in it as stories, and hang the recordings next to the photos they are about. With a collect link, relatives or friends can add a photo, a memory or a voice recording from their browser, without an account. A palace is private by default and you choose who gets in. It is made by a small team in Leuven, and you can start one for free.

Questions for other occasions

• Christmas dinner with grandparents
• New Year's Eve with friends
• A 70th, 80th or 90th birthday
• Your parents' wedding anniversary
• Mother's Day
• Father's Day
• A funeral or condolence visit
• Grandparents meeting the new baby
• A school or class reunion
• A road trip or holiday with old friends
• A retirement farewell

Read on: questions for Christmas dinner with grandparents, how to capture family stories at Christmas, 10 questions to ask your grandparents, how to record a grandparent's voice and stories, the free printable sheet of twenty questions to ask your parents.