If all were to go swimmingly…

Christmas is coming, and now that all the Sinterklaas events are over, it is time for Christmas in the Netherlands. Although they really do love to celebrate their traditional Sinterklaas (on St. Nicholas Day), they still manage to go all out for Christmas as well. In the past few days, I have seen the trees and lights go up, a wildly decorated boat house (with reindeer and all!), and several people using their bicycles to haul Christmas trees. My favorite of these was a mother who had propped a rather large Christmas tree (at least 5 feet tall, probably 6) on her bicycle, branches flinging everywhere, and was walking her bike down the side of the bike path. About fifty meters ahead, her daughter, who was probably about ten years old, was looking back at her, quite annoyed that she had to wait for her mother.

Hmm… What Christmas spirit. Just kidding.

There are giant sparkling Christmas bulbs on the front of the Leiden station, and the big tree is now up in our student center. I am still waiting for the giant Coca-Cola tree to go up in front of the train station, but I have high hopes that it will be there before we leave tomorrow.

Well, I hope everyone is getting their Christmas decorations up as well. See you all soon!