making merry

Squeaking in the Christmas memories just before the the end of January, that's so our life right now.  We are feeling ever more settled in--the maps in our heads are starting to feel somewhat complete and we know where to meet our needs, large and small--and yet I am always behind. Late. Hurried.  It's a good thing, really, because it means that we have friends, engagements, and church responsibilities that make us feel truly at home and happy here in a way that we didn't expect to for at least a year, if ever. But it is busy.

Christmas in a new culture is such a marvelous thing. It's a chance to look at our traditions and perspectives with new eyes. We keep what we want to keep, while discarding anything that feels superfluous to us. Here, Sinterklaas, one of the progenitors of the modern American Santa Claus, arrives via boat from Spain in November, and he and his helpers, the Zwaart Piets (Black Petes, which are a whole thing I can't even begin to go into, but it's worth a look on Wikipedia or YouTube), bring children gifts and treats on the fifth of December, for Saint Nicolas Day. This gets all of the commercial kid craziness out of the way early, and leaves Christmas Day for family gatherings and religious observance.  Brilliant. For years we have been hemming and hawing our way around Santa Claus, unsure how to celebrate that elaborate myth while still telling our cynical Violette that she can trust us to always, always tell her the truth about things. So, once the Sinterklaas festivities started to make things confusing, we had a family home evening and discussed which parts of Christmas are the real parts, and which are the fun pretend parts. She got it...

Or so we thought, until we were reading The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. She looked at me and said, "But how do Santa's reindeer fly?  I mean the real ones, not the pretend ones."  I said, "You remember, Santa Claus is the fun pretend part of Christmas. Jesus is the real part."  She paused and nodded.  "Oh, that's right.  But Sinterklaas is real, right?" No, he's fun pretend, too.  She looked puzzled.  "That can't be right.  Remember, I saw him arrive at the harbor on his ship with all the Zwarte Piets."  And she had.

Dinner on Christmas Eve included four missionaries as our guests, decent recompense for the kind families who had us over for Christmas dinner when we were young missionaries. We made turkey, green beans, and baked macaroni and cheese that was so good that I must share the recipe here. The next morning we woke late, made Santa pancakes, read about the wise men, and then went in to open gifts. As we entered the room, Townsie sat down at his toy piano. We encouraged him to join us, and he replied, "I can't open presents. I busy working!" and turned back to his piano. Can you tell Steve has been working from home for the past few months?

Later, just before the sun set, we took a bicycle ride to the center of town. As we rode home, through the large Dutch windows at the front of each house we could see families gathering together in sitting rooms or around dining tables. It was a truly lovely sight.

And the gifts? There was a wooden train set under the tree for Townsie and a red bicycle for Violette. Earlier in the month, Sinterklaas had brought me a beautiful creamy white Fender Stratocaster.

As for Steve, he had a very domestic Christmas. Cast iron pots and pans, a spice rack, Alice Waters's new cookbook, and an apron sporting a cool red donkey. He likes to cook! I insist. It was all fine and good, and he really was happy about it, until Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer dropped the Christmas pj's at the front door. Steve put his on and came in with a quizzical look on his face. "Are you sure these are men's?" I got them from the men's section, I swore. I had even checked twice, because they felt a bit soft. He shook his head. Rudolph had given him women's yoga pants.

Next year he is getting tickets for a monster truck rally, or maybe fishing gear.  Promise.

Our friends the Wheelers showed up for New Year's Eve, a spectacular night in which every family in the Netherlands (or so it seems) launches bottle rockets from the sidewalk in front of their house from before midnight to until after 2 a.m. I've never seen anything like it. The sky in every direction was alight with fireworks, continually, for hours. Even so, our kids were so tired they slept through the whole thing. We spent the next few days relaxing and enjoying late-night chats, and exploring Haarlem and Paleis Het Loo at Apeldoorn. It was an altogether perfect way to start the new year.

Wishing you all a joyous 2014, for the eleven months that remain of it!

p.s. I wrote a letter to Vogue in response to an article a few months ago and they published it, most likely because they cannot resist a good brava. Click here to read, pp. 42.