Christmas Market in Valkenburg

Valkenburg Christmas Market

If you come to Netherlands during Christmas time this is a spot well worth stopping. Valkenburg is a very early settlement, in the Southern most part of Netherlands. In the middle of the city is a hill or rock on which the ruins of a castle ,destroyed in 1671, remain for tourists to see. The interesting part is not so much the castle as the caves underneath them. They date back to the early Roman period, and during world war II were used to store bombs. At Christmas time however the merchants and artisans set up their goods in the caves and form what must be the most unique Christmas market experience I've ever been too. Every free corner of the cave was stuffed with green fir trees decorated with lights. I've lived next door to the magical market in Salzburg that even has horse drawn sleighs and horse that still jingle their sleigh bells like the famous Christmas song. I've seen the Christmas market in Zurich and Frankfurt. This one is better than all of them. For one thing the caves are warm because of the many people walking through (and on that note, if you do go, go early in the day, otherwise it's to packed to enjoy). Each year the town picks a theme for the Christmas market. This year the theme was a Christmas Carol. I thought their decorations were rather humorous in that they looked more like Halloween decorations than a depicting of a classic novel.
We took the kids to the Market this Saturday. In retrospect I'm very glad this was their first experience, because they had to walk quite a far way from the parking lot and were frozen and crying by the time we got to the entrance. Thankfully they warmed up after a while inside the caves. Still, it's difficult for them to enjoy something just with their eyes. We did end up breaking a pig and had to pay for it. Too bad really, the pig was cute, but overpriced. The market and caves wind around in a serpentine pattern, from all I could tell. I was completely turned around after 20 minutes. In what seemed to be the middle part there was a cart with hot dogs, a restaurant and randomly a big screen TV with the kids favorite TV show, Little Einsteins. We would have stayed to watch and eat some lunch, but there was only one chair there which Ezra promptly occupied. He threw a bit of a fit when we decided to move, but wasn't nearly as outraged as Micah who didn't stop screaming until we reached the end of the caves and bought THE most delicious strawberry candy I have ever had.
Tired, cold, and hungry the kids cheered up after some lunch and more candy attached to a little toy that was given to them by a friendly waiter.

I could tell you about the Christmas concert I attended at our church, but honestly I don't want to remember it. It was awful. Well, maybe I do want to remember how I got to take only Micah and Granny because Ezra was so keyed up and hyper from being up since 4 am that we left him home with Aaron, who wisely (or grumpily) declined attending. Micah had the time of his life banging his plastic fork to the beat of the music on the plastic plate. I was so proud of him for being able to keep time, that I didn't stop him from being noisy-ish. Later as it dragged on and on (honestly, even professionals keep it to an hour, and they kept on singing for almost 2 hours with us having to stare at the food waiting to be eaten), he got up and danced to the music and played happily with his best friend Kailea.


Just a note on my photo albums. If it seems that we favor Micah in the fotos, because there aren't many of Ezra, it's really just because as soon as I pull out the camera Ezra makes a mad dash for it trying to grab it, and it becomes very difficult to actually get him in a picture.

Arrrggghh!!!

Micah has been whining that he's hungry since 3:30 pm. I gave him a cracker. He continues to whine until we have dinner...special, yummy fries. Fries, people!!! Then what does he do? Instead of eating he goes off into a corner to play after eating 2 fries. As soon as we're done eating, he resumes his whining for food????It's not like I was feeding him soggy grasshoppers. Meal time is the most stressful part of being a parent. I wish I could just give them a pill and be done with it, or better yet...I wish they would just eat what I make, and then say thank you, mommy. Or even just eat what they ask for. I get yelled at no matter what. Of course Ezra is really picky, presumably because of his autism. Micah copies that. Therefore....arrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!

Toddler madness

So I'm sort of writing a book. No, I have no intentions of publishing it, but it's kind of fun to write in book manuscript form. It makes me feel more like a writer. Here is a little excerpt just for fun. I can laugh about it now, but it was sort of annoying at the time.

December 6, 2009

Mommy: Let’s have breakfast. What do you want? (oh and just in case you want to suggest I give them an option between two things. I've tried that, and it doesn't work either)
Ezra: Rice!
Micah, parroting Ezra: Rice!
Mommy: Are you sure Micah? You sure you don’t want toast?
Micah: Micah want rice.
I prepare the rice. Just warming it up in the microwave from yesterday’s left overs.
Ezra takes his bowl and goes to sit down at the table. I give Micah his bowl.
Micah: NO!? No rice.
Mommy: But you asked for rice.
Micah in his high pitched, panicky whining voice he’s perfected: NOooo rice. Wahaaaant toast.
Mommy: I told you, you wanted toast. You asked for rice. Mommy not happy. You’re getting on my nerves.
Micah: Nohoho rice.
Mommy makes toast with butter and jam and gives it to Micah on the pink plate he picked out.
Micah: No toast. Nohooo…all done. No toast.
Ezra: More rice? May I aks mommy, more rice?
Mommy: Sure. Micah are you sure you don’t want your rice?
Micah: NO RICE!
Mommy: OK Ezra. Here’s Micah’s rice.
Micah: NOoooo!!! Rice. Mine. Want rice. No mommy!!!!!!!!!!!! Rice.
Mommy: Here’s your toast.
Micah: No, toast! Want blue plate.
Mommy: But you picked out the pink plate.
Micah: screams. Nooooo, grannyyyyyyyyyy!!!! Runs off crying and goes to the playroom to play.

Sinterklaas and first week of December

The Christmas tree is up and decorated with bows, bears and balls, the vibrant red poinsettias line the window sills, the stockings are up, the Nutcrackers guarding the kitchen window and angels watch over us from every corner of the house. Red bows and a wreath on the table with candle complete our Christmas decor. Santa Clause movies 1 and 2 have been watched, and we are one Christmas Carol away from being in full on Christmas mode.
It has been a rough-ish week. I could tell you all about how Micah and I have been lying around doing nothing, the house falling in disarray because we were both sick, or my week long monotonous diet of rice, apple sauce and toast (you get the idea) but that would be boring. At least I lost 3 lbs this week.
How about the Sinterklaas tradition here in Netherlands? I haven't quite figured out the finer details. Essentially they have the Dutch version of Santa Clause, called Sinterklaas. He wears a red papal hat, carries a papal stick, has the same long red robes as Santa Clause, and a long white beard. His preferred mode of transportation is a steam ship and he arrives on his ship from his permanent residence in Spain, around the 1st of December. His journey and arrival are closely followed by the media, who apparently is in on the charade of juvenile mass-deception. All week long the kids can put a wood shoe out in front of the door and the next morning they can check if there are goodies in it. On December 5th they gather as a family, sing Sinterklaas songs until they are interrupted by a knock on the door. The kids rush to the door but Sinterklaas, fast, professional, and busy, is usually gone by the time they arrive, his presence evidenced only by a pile of gifts for the kids. Disappointed but happy they unwrap the gifts while the grandparents show up, late as usual with apologies and disappointment of having so narrowly missed his visit.
Sinterklaas has a helper called the Black Peter (schwarze piete, sp?). He wears colorful clothes and hands out Peppernoten everywhere, tiny spice cookies. I asked someone why the black pete is black and has curly hair. Apparently he is the chimney sweep that climbs down the chimney to put the presents out for the kids. What I found surprising is that kids and adults during this week dress up as Schwarze pete everywhere. In fact, the Schwarze Piet is as represented as Santa Clause in the malls in the USA.
I went to Ezra's school Sinterklaas. As I was watching the kids go through the Charades I couldn't help but be bored and annoyed. I wondered if I had always disliked these "Shows" as much, or if I had just grown old and cynical. I came to the conclusion that I couldn't remember ever liking them. I didn't mind theater or movies, but I remember rebelling against anything that was trying to be past off as true and that was clearly not. My dislike for Santa Clause probably also came from the fact that the Swiss Version called Samichlaus generated mostly fear. He would come the 6th December. We would gather at a friends house and one of the parents would dress up as Samichlaus. He would have a helper called Schmutzli (Schmutz means dirt), a monk in a brown robe, in charge of leading the donkey with the burlap bags of nuts and oranges. (If you had wealthy parents, they would even arrange for a real donkey at these kinds of gatherings). Then when Samichlaus showed up you had to kneel in front of him and recite a poem. Then he would ask you if you were a good boy/girl that year, and if you were you would get some nuts and oranges, but if you weren't Schmutzly took out his rod and beat you. It was implied that if you were very naughty he would put you in the burlap bag, beat you, and take you back to the black forest (Schwarzwald). Honestly, the Schwarzwald is actually very pretty, but at the time it sounded terrifying.
I was somewhat shy but observant as a kid, and although being terrified I did remark the similarities between the Samichlaus and certain of my dad's friends. I still remember the day that I found the costume in the bottom of my dad's cupboard. I went upstairs and said: A-ha. I knew it! It was very much like the painting from Norman Rockwell of the boy who discovers the suit in the drawer, titled very appropriately THE DISCOVERY (although I wasn't wearing jammis at the time, and I didn't look quite so shocked, because it was only a confirmation of my suspicions).