Poems and surprises are made with a little sense of humour.
And are of course all about showing remorse for and have all your little mistakes be forgiven. If someone is doing only good things of course you can pay a lot of attention to that too.
Poems:
If you write a poem to someone on Sinterklaas it should be about the little mistakes someone made that year, about his little sins but also the good things he did. For instance like: you forget your glasses all the time, you forgot a birthday, you smoke too much, or having a drink too much the last party you went to.
We Always say: Read your poem first!!! before he can open his present.
Which means he should read his poem and talk about his little sins, his little mistakes so he can be forgiven. But of course you also can tell him what he did very well.
Surprises:
If you make a surprise it should also be like that. For instance a present wrapped up in a big box for glasses (with a big "glasses" you wrote on it) something like that. So you say with it: Here are your glasses and don't you ever forget them again. I'll forgive you now for it.
Or a surprise could be a present hidden in a lot of syrup or something dirty so you have to get through all that before you can have your present and can be forgiven.
Rebus:
What we also do is making a Rebus so someone has to solve the Rebus where a present is hidden. After he found out where it's somewhere, in the barn, under a closet, behind the t.v.( if you have 3 of them he has to search a little more) he can start trying to find it.
This also means: Do a little work before your little mistakes will be forgiven.
Sometimes someone hides it in the garden under the ground, so someone can sweat a little before his mistakes are forgiven.