Christmas Cometh?

I'm told that my blog is at it's best when it's full of pictures. What that says about the content of my writing I'll not ask, but on that measure hopefully this entry should be good.

Today marked a very special day in the Netherlands, the arrival of Sinterklaas! Now, I should imagine that most of you aren't familiar with the story of Sinterklaas so if I may, I'll direct you to this Wikipedia article which explains all. Today Sinterklaas arrived throughout the Netherlands and Belgium on his boat from Spain with his hopelessly political incorrect Zwarte Pieten.

Traditionally from today until the 5th December Dutch children place little shoes by their chimneys in the hope of getting sweets from his helpers. Therefore it's not incorrect to say that Christmas has started already, five months before the day! Well, actually, it is incorrect to say that, for Christmas and Sinterklaas Eve are two separate events here with gifts being given mainly on the latter. The upshot of this state of affairs is that I'll be in the Netherlands when people give gifts here, and I'll be in the UK when people give gifts there! Result, as they say.

So today I've been out and about exploring the festivities. Things started off with Sinterklaas arriving among a flotilla of little boats on the river:



I must say that I felt quite out of place being a lone 20 year old in a crowd here most people were accompanied by a four year old child, but still, I guess I can claim to be a child at heart. After the river festivities had finished things moved onto land with a procession through the town centre with a band, dancers, clowns and lots of people in fancy dress:



Of course though all of this was just for one man, Sinterklaas, and here's the man himself:


I really wasn't expecting such a show, especially seeing how the actual day isn't for another three weeks, but it all had a really lovely atmosphere. The town centre really was buzzing. All of the children seemed to be having such a great time and it felt blissfully non-commercial throughout. The only thing that made it all slightly surreal was the fact that the Netherlands is currently engaged in the build up to a general election next week and the town was full of election workers and stalls. I wouldn't say that Christmas and politics usually mix that well, but the stalls for the different parties were all lined up next to each other in a highly convivial way. All of the children had balloons, but it was only on closer inspection that I noticed the balloons had come from the election stalls. Talk about getting them young!