Growing up...

Growing up is a funny thing. When you're young you can't wait to be older, and by the time you're about 16 you think you already know everything you need to know about how the world works. If there's anything you definitely know for sure, it's that you know better than your parents. It then takes another 3-5 years before you realise you don't know everything and that maybe, every once in a while, your parents words and ideas actually make more sense than yours. And, more importantly, that there are advantages to being a young and innocent child as well. Like how passionately you could believe in the myth of Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa.

I've stopped believing in the myth of Sinterklaas many years ago. I'm not sure how old I was anymore - probably around 7 or 8 - but I do remember the shock of realising it's always been your parents who wrote the Sinterklaas letters and gave you gifts on 5 December instead of this friendly old man with his long white beard and his helpers. That the realness of Sinterklaas was always just a figment of your childhood imagination, maintained by every single person who had already figured out the myth. But even once I knew that Sinterklaas was really an actor and all Dutch adults were only putting on an elaborate show for the children every year, I still loved the myth of Sinterklaas. How everyone makes an effort to keep up the myth or tries to give it new meaning once their own children are past the 'believing stage'. And even to this day, I watch the official arrival of Sinterklaas into the country on TV if I get the chance.

Yet today, when Sinterklaas once again arrived in Holland on his steamboat, another part of my childhood image of Sinterklaas was taken away. You see, even though I've known for many years that Sinterklaas is a collective figment of the imagination, there has still only ever been one 'real' Sinterklaas for me. The actor who was Sinterklaas when I still believed and long after I discovered the truth debuted in 1986, and has therefore been with me my entire life. For 25 years, he didn't just play Sinterklaas, he WAS Sinterklaas. This year was the first time Sinterklaas was no longer 'my' Sinterklaas. My Sinterklaas retired and made way for a new Sinterklaas. One who will no doubt fulfill the role with charm and integrity, and who will define the childhood images of Sinterklaas for generations of children to come. Yet seeing this new man take on the role of one of my childhood icons on practically the eve of my 25th birthday, I can't help but feel a little nostalgic and a just a tiny bit old.