Last month of 2025 and still so much was left to do before the year’s end. Luckily a lot got done the first week of December after so much prep work throughout November.

December 1 – Day 387

The week started off with a beautiful sunrise and got better from there.

Six months after hearing Anne Applebaum lecture at TivoliVredenburg, we went to another lecture, this time featuring the CEO of Signal - Meredith Whittaker. We had made plans months ago with friends to go to this lecture and when it came time to go, I briefly thought about bailing because there was just too much to do, but I’m really glad I made space to see our friends for a yummy ramen dinner beforehand and then listen to the lecture. The evening reinforced my beliefs in the importance of privacy and getting out from under the thumb of big-tech as much as possible. If you haven’t downloaded the chat app, I encourage you to do so. You can connect with me there. Earlier this year I was even able to successfully pitch our women’s group to move all our chats away from WhatsApp and over the Signal.

December 2 – Day 388

Getting ready to prep our house for sale and for some reason, the heating stopped working. I wondered if it was our super old thermostat - we did NOT need anything more to fix before putting our house on the market. I asked in the neighborhood group if anyone else was having issues and everyone said they were fine. Luckily, one neighbor suggested I call the district heating company that is responsible for bringing hot water to the house and I put on my big-girl pants and made the scary phone call in Dutch. I was able to successfully navigate the bureaucracy and they had someone come out that same afternoon and he fixed the problem in less than 10 minutes and for free. One of those issues where if you know what you’re doing, it’s a quick and easy fix.

I felt very proud of myself for arranging that fix all in Dutch. It’s still crappy, but it’s manageable enough that people mostly understand me.

December 3 – Day 389

We had one more day before we took photos of the house and even though we had made a lot of progress “thinning out”, there were still some larger items we wanted to re-gift. So I took photos of a big barrel of legos and this scooter we had received from neighbors and asked if anyone else wanted to have them. They were immediately snapped up and that made me so incredibly happy to be able to pass them along to people who would get more use out of them.

December 4 – Day 390

We were blessed with blue skies for the photoshoot. It makes such a difference to have sunlight when showing off the house. We had done a lot of work to stage the house for the photos making it look more like a catalogue than a home - but that is what is customary so we had to go with the flow. These photos I took with my phone, the professional photos will be available online with the house information in early January.

December 5 – Day 391

Pakjesavond! (Package evening) The evening that Sinterklaas delivers gifts to the children along with a poem. We had a nice dinner as is customary and then David waited and waited and waited and finally around 7 pm, there was a loud knock on the door and a large package was left on the doorstep. He ran downstairs to try and catch Sinterklaas but was just too late. David received a large lego set that we sillily thought would take weeks to build.

December 6 – Day 392

Saturday morning I went up to Internet Archive HQ in Amsterdam to meet with an ambassador to UNESCO. I showed him around the place and we had a good chat about how our organizations could work together in the future.

Returning home that afternoon, we went over to friends for dinner and ate a delicious warm hearty winter meal of chili. Then David spent the night and enjoyed time with his friend. Coming home to this cozy sight of the star in the window and the “icicles” on the bike shed made the darkness just that much bit cozier.

December 7 – Day 393

I grew up with the family custom of putting up the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend, but because of the house photoshoot, we had to wait until that was done so the photos wouldn’t be obviously dated. We were able to decorate the tree the following weekend, after Sinterklaas returned to Spain and this follows the Dutch tradition more. I still prefer putting it up after Thanksgiving so that David can decorate with his grandparents but this years was cute too. Another “American-Dutch” kid who is growing up here came over and they dressed the tree together - literally. Their cooperation was beautiful to see.

More Windham Hill Artist Holiday music. This version of "Carol of the Bells" was performed by Liz Story, Andy Narell, Paul McCandless, Barbara Higbie, Turtle Island String Quartet, Philip Aaberg, and Michael Manring.