5 dec

Sinterklaas. The traditional beginning of a month with lots of traditions. Time to be nostalgic. Because I adhere to what the Dutch stand up comedian Wim Sonneveld said: Enough of value has gone down the drain lately.

Thinking about traditions, I did realize that there is lots we are missing out on this year. Sinterklaas evenming itself. With Claire of course, but the last five years also with my mother and with her brother Fried. Those were joyful evenings with a heartfelt ‘Dank Sinterklaasje’, with which Fried wanted to start and end the evening of well intended poems and nice gifts. But more than that, my mother would bring some real suet and we would make two Christmas puddings, to be gobbled up in the days around Christmas when my mother would visit again, together with the families of Hellen and Hanneke. My mother will have to prepare those puddings by herself this year. The taste will be the same, but the experience is what matters almost as much.

The Christmas season around Michael Hall and Worth is full of events that we have gotten very fond of thru the years. The first time listening to ‘Lauft Ihr Hirten alzugleich’ from Die Wiener Sangerknaben (edition 1967), the first day after Sinterklaas – one has to discipline oneself in these things; The advent market, already over; the carol evening at school, probably also done already; The lightning of the Christmas tree at Wakehurst (The largest lit three in the UK), what a thrill to see that from far away. On our driveway, just past Howard & Rachel we could see the tree twice and close to our house the tip still showed. What a gift having lived close to that; The one man performance of A Christmas Carol by Ashley, a Forest Row native and brilliant performer. The spirit of Christmas through a masterful face and a masterful voice. (Thinking of Ashley, every time I see an old clock I see Marc and Suzanne’s kids being born and jump out of the clock- another brilliant story of Ashley); The carol evening at Worth School; Our own carol singing at Strudgates to the cows – they would say Moo when we stopped, but were respectfully quiet, in adoration almost it seemed, when we sang; the buying of the Christmas turkey at Tablehurst, first having taken out another mortgage on a house we do not possess; The Christmas eve mulled wine at Howard & Rachel; the candle lit Christmas eve mass at Worth; the sloe gin after the Christmas walk with Sue and Peter (Sue, Peter, if you read this, we brought some ‘sloe’ with us, it wiil be ready for you to drink whenever you want somewhere around Autun); Alan coming over a few extra times to try out a whiskey he found in his cupboard that demanded to be drunk just here and now, oh glory days!; Christmas dinner with the Volleybal gang (no equivalent of volleybal in the 12^th century, Malcolm, lots of eating and drinking by the happy few though); Christmas dinners at ours and friends, it seemed to be the time everybody always wanted to meet everyone.

Thinking about it is experiencing it a little bit. Julie and I kept a few traditions alive though, today. We wrote each other poems that made us choke up, wrote Claire a poem that made Julie and me choke up when she read it to us via Skype – when it is cold it is easy to get sentimental – we listened to Kinderkoor de Vrijbuiters, mainly to hear the steamboat arrive in the first song. And we ate cheese fondue with lovely brussels sprouts, delightful little mushrooms and delicious cherry tomatoes, topped off with cumin seeds of which we bought enough to help us through Sinterklaas dinners for the next 25 years.

We miss out on a lot, we realize, which makes the experience bittersweet. But then, bittersweet is still sweet, I suppose.