First up, my faves of this week:

SCARVES! I am loving wearing my scarves again now that the weather has turned a bit cooler around here. Though I tend to go for the more “natural” colors (read: brown, and any variation on that theme) I think I might need to venture into bringing some pizazz into my wardrobe with some other colors. Yes, I did just say “pizazz.” In other news: I am now craving pizza.

ASTRONOMICAL HIGH TIDES! During really high tides, especially around a full moon, the marsh behind our house floods with about a foot of water, and before long, there are white and blue herons fishing the waters right past our property line. The best part? I can see this all from my home office window. Yay for nature, and yay for working from home!

Nay for having the backyard flood at least once a year: (photo taken with my iPhone December 1, so please pardon the quality.)

CHRISTMAS MUSIC! Much as I like to deny it, there is a place in my heart for Christmas music. In particular, I really love my Christmas albums by Sarah McLachlan (Wintersong), Diana Krall (Christmas Songs), Straight No Chaser (Holiday Spirits), Josh Groban (Noel), Dave Brubeck (A Dave Brubeck Christmas), Gloria Estefan (Christmas Through Your Eyes) and, what list would be complete without the Charlie Brown Christmas album? I’m just noticing my iTunes Christmas playlist has 346 songs in it…if I start playing it now, I might get through all songs by Christmas.

And speaking of Christmas, this brings us right into our Blast from the Past! (See how I segued right into our next topic? That journalism degree didn’t go to waste after all.)

Growing up in Holland we celebrated Christmas, but, for kids the REAL deal was “Sinterklaas,” who delivered presents on December 5th. Unlike Santa Claus, who comes from the North Pole in his sleigh pulled by reindeer, our Sinterklaas arrives on a boat from Spain, and rides his horse from rooftop to rooftop, dropping the presents down the chimney with help from his “Zwarte Pieten.” (His black helpers, which today causes some politically correct fall-out, but is generally accepted as tradition; growing up, I always believed the “zwarte pieten” were only black because they slid down the chimneys to deliver the presents; this was constantly reinforced in my mind by the obviously white people in black makeup who made up the “zwarte pieten” seen on tv.)

In the week leading up to December 5th, we put our carrot-filled (for the horse!) shoes in front of the fireplace (or probably by the front door, since most homes in Holland don’t have fireplaces) in the hopes of finding some chocolate coins, marzipan animals, or “potatoes” (marzipan balls rolled in cacao) in our shoes.

These are my wooden shoes from when I was little, filled to the brim with goodies we bought at World Market earlier this week.

Someone was a bit perturbed by the fact that a) the goodies in the shoes weren’t for him, and, b) my camera was focused on something other than his mug:

And, in case you think “nobody actually wears wooden shoes!”, here’s me at age 3 or 4, showing off these very same well-worn wooden shoes (along with that lovely pleather dress that appears to be about 3 inches too short):

If you’ve made it this far in the post, thanks for reading, and have a great weekend! I’m planning on polishing off all those yummy goodies in my shoes and eating some other Dutch goodies to celebrate Sinterklaas!