Sinterklaasavond, it's that time again.

I've written almost exactly this entry before, but isn't that kind of the point with traditions? In the Netherlands, the home of much of our heritage, they love Saint Nicholas the way we love Santa, possibly even more. And who wouldn't? Forget the crazy flying reindeer, this guy comes in on a logical steamboat and brings crazy Zwarte Pieten with him, plus candy and small presents. St. Nicholas arrives earlier than his Americanized counterpart, so we've added the habit of kicking off our holiday season with this Dutch tradition. The extra time shared with family is the best part,

and opening pakjes,

eating Dutch food,

and then we put our wooden shoes by the fireplace and go to sleep with visions of gouda dancing in our heads. My verve for picture taking took somewhat of a backseat to cleaning, wrapping, and cooking this time around and I'm lucky that Jon likes to play with the camera sometimes, too, or there would be none to share. There are none to share from St. Nicholas Day morning, though, when we were still in bed whiel Calvin disovered his shoes and the little goodies in them (an orange, some change, and a new book to read). We're going to have to be a bit more on top of these on Christmas morning...

Home for the Holidays

Home for the Holidays is the name of Dexter's annual holiday festival which seems to happen on the first Saturday in December. We've attended three years in a row now, making it a regular part of our holiday traditions, and we've enjoyed it more each time, which is probably directly proportional to the age of our youngster.

Home for the Holidays give every child four chances to be confused by the ever-present nature of Santa, starting at breakfast with the Lighthouse Cafe Santa,

then the downtown gazebo Santa,

then the museum santa,

and lastly at lunch with the Koney Island Santa (which we didn't visit). That man is busy.

Ice sculptures in the park,

Cookies and crafts at the Girl Scouts' Bazaar,

Chicago for Thanksgiving

I cannot remember a single Thanksgiving that was not spent by my family in the state of Michigan. In my earlier years Thanksgiving was spent at my grandparent's house in Pleasant Ridge, and later at their home in Brighton. As the years went by Thanksgiving moved to my house, my parent's house, and then I moved out and was again a guest for that holiday. Changes really get away from you from you at that point and in no time I was bringing my own family to my childhood home for that celebration. But through all those years Thanksgiving was always spent in Michigan, so this was a very special Thanksgiving indeed that saw the three of us and my parents pile into our van and head to Chicago to spend the holiday with Curtis and Julie and her family. The traffic was light (we left early Wednesday morning to be assured of that) and the weather was congenial until we got there (when it turned to a mix of snow, ice, and rain).

Just like being at the kids' table again, all the parents stayed at a nearby hotel while all us kids stayed at Curtis's place. We visited a liquor store the size of a small local Kroger, smoked turkey on the roof of Curtis's building, roasted marshmallows, watched parades and football, and shopped Michigan Ave on Black Friday. We even ate dinner and played pool on the same furniture we enjoyed at my grandparents' house in Brighton, and enjoyed the family recipes from both our past and from Julie's. It was a great trip.

Turkey on the roof...

Taking the train town for shopping...

Bloomingdales in downtown Chicago is in the old Medina Temple, and the new owners have a done a wonderful job of integrating, or at least protecting, the original architecture. Best stop of the day, excepting maybe our browse through Room and Board.

Sitting on a million dollars of carpets in Bloomingdales. Really, a million dollars worth at least—the top carpet alone was $35,000.

It was a good trip.

Halloween only comes three times a year

(find instructions here)

We spent an inordinate amount of time creating Calvin's costume this year, and he'd been so excited about being a train that I decided to make this once annual event last a bit longer. Dexter had their annual downtown costume parade and trick-or-treat on Friday so we traipsed through town collecting candy from our favorite local businesses and workers.

On Saturday Kerrytown had trick-or-treating at the Farmers market, along with free donuts and cider, so Calvin got a second chance to done his beloved train costume. My favorite part of the event was hearing him describe the costume to all the questioning onlookers (of which there were many). The second best part of the event was the occasional booth that was handing out real goodies—apples, dried corn, or gourds instead of candy.

And of course, then there was Halloween. Jon's parents and sister came to enjoy the evening with us, his mother sporting pumpkin orange and Ann the good witch in white, and we all took turns carting the railroad crossing signs on our forays into the neighborhood. The longer that we've been in this house the more we get to know our neighbors, and that makes Halloween exponentially more fun—we know them, they know Calvin, it's a good time.

 With all that Halloween one might be concerned about a major sugar high. What exactly will this do to our healthy diets? Like last year we offered Calvin the opportunity to trade in any of the candy he collected for a quarter per piece—money that he could use to buy any item he chose. On Thursday, after his trip through Dexter, he decided to eat one piece of candy after lunch and traded the rest in for money. I wondered if after that first taste the decision might be a tougher one, but actually the one piece of Kit Kat he had was apparently enough—he traded in all the rest of the candy which we handed back out to our neighbors. At a price of $25 (the total he accrued) it was probably the most expensive Halloween candy we've ever bought, but I figure we paid a premium to keep the household sugar intake down, and to give Calvin a chance to make good choices with lasting outcomes.

Costume sneak peek

It's probably not a long shot to guess what he's going to be (for some reasons more than others)...

Most photography in this post is by Calvin.