There is a huge Christmas tree on the marketplace, then the city mayor reads from the Book, and all people are singing 'Silent Night, Holy Night'. The lights in the tree are lit, and in all houses around the market place people have candles in the windows. Nowhere is electric light, not in the shopping windows, not in the houses and not from the streetlamps. Suddenly, Gouda is really a medieval town. But so very, very crowded that it's difficult to let the atmosphere sink in.
Candles are also part of tradition in a different way.
We try to sell them to tourists as a specialty. Nowadays, we even have paintings of the Gouda town hall on the candles, to prove how authentic they are. In the Netherlands, stroopwafels are really very popular. You can buy the 'real Gouda stroopwafels', everywhere and they are real enough, but most usually not from Gouda. There is a special relation between the inhabitants of Gouda and the stroopwafels, however.