Now, those of you who know me, I am not religious – but I do love the holiday time and feel to each her own and the whole point of this time of year is to celebrate togetherness.  Be it through religion, spirituality, or just plain humanity.  There’s plenty of history of various cultures through time and across the Earth have celebrations this time of year.

So where am I going with this?

Advent, Sinterklaas, Santa Claus.

As an adult, I’ve not really been into the whole Christmas thing.  But some of my favorite memories as a child were opening my stocking on Christmas morning.  Lacking a fireplace, we would hang our stockings next to the wood stove in the living room. Which of course is hot.  So Santa would place our stockings on the doorknobs of our bedrooms once filled.  The absolute joy of waking up, opening the door of my bedroom and feeling the heavy *clunk* from the filled stocking hanging there was unforgettable.  And so, although Santa Claus typically isn’t here in Switzerland or the Netherlands (more on that in a bit), I want my daughter to experience that joy as well.  So she has a giant stocking that I knit frantically in the car on our drive up to the Netherlands a couple Christmases ago.

Then we come to Sinterklaas.  I mentioned the tradition a bit in another post. But tonight we will leave our shoes out with carrots and apples and he will come all the way from his trip in the Netherlands down to Switzerland and (hopefully) leave some goodies in our shoes.  Let’s see what tomorrow brings…

And lastly, Advent.  As a child we had a nice little colander that we would open a door up every day and see the picture inside.  It was definitely enough for me.  I loved it.  And I still do.  But for some reason I felt that I wanted Beryl to have one with stuff.  Why??????  She has enough stuff!  She has Sinterklaas AND Santa Claus!  Plus Christmas!  Plus all the spoiling she will get at her Oma and Opa’s this year.   Not to mention her birthday was just the other week!  AHHH!  Why am I doing this?

Anyway, I guess it’s because *I* will be opening a little package a day, and I wanted her to have one too.  This year she’s finally understanding that this is a special time of year – she’s really *noticing* the lights and decorations.  Not just in a “oooh, pretty” kind of way – but “Dis das special!” way.

And so tomorrow the craziness begins.