Opinionated

November 11 is the day you’re allowed to leave your little light at home

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That St. Martin’s Day was canceled in the province of North Holland because of coronavirus was actually no surprise. What awaits us with St. Nicholas and Christmas is still anyone’s guess, but the fact that children in a ‘deep red’ province would be advised not to go door to door singing very loudly was fairly predictable. But how bad is that, really?

 

Foto van culinair journalist Delilah Warcup - van Eyck

And what I honestly mean is: how upset would children be that they’re no longer allowed to come by my front door? Because I believe my reputation when it comes to ‘you really have to go there for insanely good candy’ leaves something to be desired…

In the beginning

It all began when, after the birth of our first child, we moved into a hypermodern apartment building with underfloor heating on the glass-enclosed galleries. We came from a drafty but beloved dump in the Jordaan and couldn’t believe how comfortable it was. The elevators were spacious, there was an indoor garage, and I don’t think our baby felt a single drop of rain on her face during the first six months of her life. Who else lived in that apartment building? Lots of children. And some kind of parents’ committee that organized things like making lanterns together. But I had never heard of St. Martin’s Day, and I came from the Jordaan, where no one had ever knocked on the door of our drafty dump on November 11. So the first time seventeen little children stood at the door, I was completely stupefied and, in shock, I think I slammed the door shut. I was also pregnant again by then, so I blame this memory loss and insanity entirely on the hormones.

Revenge

The following year, I was completely prepared. I can recognize now that I was living in a kind of extremely healthy bubble, and that I was very focused on keeping sugar out of the children’s lives, at least for the first few years. This translated into a St. Martin’s Day giveaway debut at the door where I wholeheartedly gave the well-behaved group outside a bag of minirice cakes topped with a layer of dehydrated fruit powder. I’m not joking. My family still makes fun of me for this.

Shots fired, lessons learned

Or so you’d think—that after this humiliation (on my part), I would have learned something. What did I do the following year? A tangerine. I thought that would still fit within the tradition, but this year too, the displeasure was plain to see on the faces at the door.

Step by little step

Another year went by, and now I was beginning to find my groove. I wasn’t ready to throw all my ideas overboard yet, but by then I did think it was time to show those neighborhood children that I wasn’t a complete lunatic. So I bought candy. Organic, from the health-food store, because I wasn’t quite ready for something like Fruit Mentos. Suspicious looks were directed my way, because what were these suspicious, unfamiliar candy wrappers? Besides, fewer children came to our door every year; by then, half of them had had enough of that strange neighbor and her odd St. Martin’s Day habits. But the few children who had simply been blocked in previous years tentatively grabbed something from the bowl. Later that evening, we tried one ourselves. They smelled like vomit, and they didn’t taste very good either.

The following year

Then came the year when I threw all my principles overboard. By then we had moved to a ‘real’ neighborhood: cozy, with lots of contact between neighbors, where almost everyone put little candles outside their doors on November 11 to show that their hearts were big and their candy bowls well stocked. A neighborhood also full of kind elderly people, who perhaps made up for missing their own grandchildren that evening by showering other children with affection in candy form. I still got a little nervous sometimes when I saw how much candy the children came home with, thinking about how much they had already stuffed away along the way. But I also wanted to show my best side and not be that weird woman with her healthy rice cakes. So I dutifully bought a few bags of mini Mars bars and so on, and we had a few perfectly good years. Except for once, when I simply didn’t feel like dealing with it and dragged the whole family to the pizzeria on a weeknight.

Bye-bye, St. Martin’s Day

And now the whole celebration isn’t happening. No last-minute dash to the store for a lantern stick because you still can’t make a bike light out of a branch yourself, no more warming up rain-soaked, freezing children with hot chocolate after they get home (just saying—I never did that), but above all: no more filled candy jar to quietly yet steadily plunder. I guess we’ll just have to stock up for ourselves…

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