Kruidnoten in August

Do you love kruidnoten? Are you the kind of person who buys as many of them as possible during Sinterklaas time? Do you have a mild panic attack when your stockpile runs out at the start of the year? Do you spend the next few months going through withdrawal?

Never fear. You don’t have to wait until November anymore. You can already buy new kruidnoten before the kids go back to school. Kruidnoten are already officially back on sale… since August!

Okay, I know kruidnoten going on sale early is nothing new. It’s been happening for the last few years. However, it really does feel like their reappearance creeps forward a week or two earlier each year. I wonder how long it will be until they are being sold alongside Easter eggs.

At this point they could already be marketed as a back to school treat for your children or as a side dish for guests at your final barbeque during the fading summer heat wave.

I should know better by now but it still takes me by surprise each year when I walk into my local supermarket and see kruidnoten on sale before leaves have started falling off trees.

Kruidnoten in August Barbeque

Kruidnoten in August School

Kruidnoten in Summer

As with many things there are two camps of people on the matter of kruidnoten. One consists of the for-mentioned kruidnoten addicts who are delighted by the early return. The other is people who like a little mental space between their summer holidays and winter festive celebrations.

I have to admit I fall more into the second camp than the first. I want Sinterklaas (and Christmas) time to stay special. I don’t want it to start too early and feel dragged out. When I lived in England I used to think Christmas stuff appearing in the shops in November was already too early.

Despite all this I have to confess that when I first saw kruidnoten in the shops this year I was tempted to buy some. When I told my six year old daughter this she had some very good advice for me.

“Don’t do it Papa. Otherwise you will get less gifts from Sinterklaas.”

She raises a very good point. I wonder what Sinterklaas has to say about the early sales of kruidnoten. Maybe I’ll write him another letter when he arrives in the country.


How do you feel about the early sales of kruidnoten? Are you thrilled or not? Let me know in the comments below.


Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

6 Responses

  1. Geraldine says:

    I’m like you, on the 2nd bucket. I was in shock and sad to see it. We even skipped Halloween and St Maarten that comes first. ?

  2. vallypee says:

    I cannot admit to having an opinion at all, since I don’t actually like them, but I agree that Christmas/Sinterklaas stuff starts far too early here as everywhere!

  3. Camila says:

    I know it’s ridiculous that they are in the shops so early, but I love them so much I buy them already nevertheless. Already had my first pound of pepernoten and the first bag of taai-taai is also nearly finished!
    Btw what do you think of taai-taai? I’ve noticed that it’s a quite controversial type of food; most people either hate it or love it.

    • Stuart says:

      As much as I go on about them being sold too eairly I do love them too.

      I’m not sure I’ve ever had taai-taai. I just had to google them to see what they were.

  4. trudy weissmann says:

    As a American who on Dec. 28 has only 4 more 100g bags of Bolletje Kruidnoten left from my 25 bag stockpile, I am very happy that I might not have to wait as long next year. Now I just need to pester the online source that I ordered from to stock them earlier

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