Bah, Humbug?

I know it's just Dec. 5, but I'm finding the Christmas spirit a little elusive this year. There are a few reasons for this:

1. No Christmas music boring holes in my head (I've heard it in very few stores, and on the radio, it's just on the Armed Forces station). We've been playing a bunch on the iPod, but my selection is severely limited.

2. Hardly any lights on houses, and few decorated trees (outside or inside). They sell plenty of decorations here, but I sure don't see many up. We've seen a few places selling trees, but each place has only a handful of trees for sale.

3. Confusion over how to celebrate. We figured out that tomorrow (Dec. 6) is St. Nick's Day, which is when the kids here get their toys. So I've done all my shopping, and put packages under the tree, gifts in the stocking and candy in their shoes. (How we will pull the kids away from their presents in order to take them to school is a wrinkle we haven't fully figured out.) Then today T.J. hears that for some families, St. Nick actually brings the toys tonight (Dec. 5) -- and basically pulls a ding-dong-ditch: ringing the doorbell, then when the family opens the door, there's a sack of presents. Then the Zwarte Pieten come overnight leaving the goodies in their shoes.

So even though St. Nick arrives via ONE horse named Americo, we still decided to "encourage" Amelia to bed by shaking sleigh bells outside her window. Not accounting for the triple pane windows, we had to shake the bells four times outside (while nonchalantly opening a window so Amelia could hear). Her first response? "I think that's just a cat." T.J. was determined, so he went back out and shook them again. Amelia then acknowledged that it was probably St. Nick, but that his bells sounded different than last year (actually, we used the same bells last year, too).

Well, in any case, we're ready. But I also learned today that many of Amelia's classmates won't be getting their gifts tomorrow, so then I will have to try to explain when not everyone was "visited" by St. Nick....

4. St. Nick? Sinterklaas? Santa? I've given up trying to not say "Santa" -- it just keeps slipping out. Not that the kids know the difference, but it's just so hard to keep all the traditions straight!

I guess I'm feeling a little nostalgic for home (especially for shopping at the mall at 10 p.m.). It's neat to celebrate some new traditions, but I also miss those of home (and not that I'm missing them -- we'll celebrate those soon enough!).

I did manage to find the ingredients for traditional Neunreiter Christmas Day caramel rolls, so we'll get to have some yummy food for the morning. As I'm trying to send everyone to school!

That's about all for today. Time for bed, so St. Nick will fill my shoes!