It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Okay, I know it's still November, but I'll be home for Christmas three weeks from today! I started listening to Christmas songs at the office yesterday evening in an attempt to cheer myself up and am now midway through compiling an "alternative" Christmas playlist to burn onto CD for whoever wants it (siblings - copies for your cars will be in the post next week! and I expect them to be playing full blast when you're chauffeuring me around!)

I'm also in festive mood because the Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas next Tuesday. Kids leave their shoes out to be filled with sweets, and adults get drunk and make each other presents (a poem, a card, or in one friend's experience, a full sized papier maché turkey). The Sint has been the subject of quite a few news headlines this year as debate escalates about the political correctness of his helpers, the Zwarte Pieten (Black Petes). Tradition has it, though, that the Petes' faces are black due to the chimney soot, but I can't imagine them surviving this long in any other country.

Political debate aside, the streetlights are lit, the ice rinks are up, and Amsterdam looks prettier than it has all year. And not a single shop blaring cheesy Christmas songs - that generally doesn't kick in until the week before (if at all), by which time I will be winging my way home. All in all, the best of both worlds.