Strings of street lights, even stop lights, blink a bright red and green

Forget the fact that the Dutch don't celebrate either Halloween or Thanksgiving. Or the fact that Sinterklaas comes in the middle of November, thus giving good reason to start decorating much earlier than my American attitude deems acceptable. No, there is a different reason Christmas lights go up towards the end of October.

I'm sure they were put up early to counter act the effects that come with the doom and gloom of daylight savings which occurred on Sunday. When pure darkness changes from 6:30pm to 5:30pm overnight, there is nothing better than a few twinkling lights to bring some cheer- instead of the automatic response which would have come otherwise: tears.