Christmas in Holland

It's the 25th of the month, that means it's time for me to show off a Christmas Card from my collection.

Some photos of Derek Holland skeeve me out, with his tiny mustache n' all. But he seems like a cool, funny guy. And a pretty good pitcher when healthy. So he won me over and I went ahead and pulled the trigger on this 2014 Tribute Green Auto for a few bucks.

Pretty cool.

As for Christmas in Holland (--See, I feel bad. What if people find this page from Google and were legitimately looking to learn about Holland's Christmas traditions?), bigger than 12/25 in the Netherlands is December 5th, which is St. Nicholas Eve. Dutch kids leave their shoes/clogs out that night in the hopes St. Nicholas will leave them presents. (More info)

Wow, this is coincidentally close to my heart because I actually did this as a kid, even though I'm zero percent Dutch. But I've got a cool mom who encouraged the custom in our house. It was always a kickass prelude to the holidays when I could put my shoes outside the doorway to my room before bed on 12/5 and wake up to some candy and maybe GI Joe action figure or a small toy like that. Often I would get a cassette of cool Christmas music (e.g., holiday albums from the Chipmunks, Beach Boys, California Raisins), which is perfect timing for such a gift, when you think about it! You don't want to wait until the 25th for a new Christmas album to listen to.

Some years we forgot, though. It's easy to overlook 12/5 as a holiday. All you parents of young kids out there, I encourage you to celebrate St. Nicholas Eve with your lil' tykes. I for one have very fond memories of the holiday. It was almost cooler than Christmas because it was an under-the-radar holiday that not many (if any) other kids in my neighborhood got to celebrate.

Anyways, in addition to marking the 2-months-till-Christmas point, today is also the local card show for me. Yay! Been looking forward to this. Hope to bring home some cool cards to show off soon.

Oh, and as for the other Holland in baseball right now, Greg, his Royals bounced back from a Game 1 loss with a couple wins and look to keep rolling in Game 4 tonight. Good luck, guys!