October is here, the leaves are falling and chances are that you have already eaten your full share of pepernoten ahead of the December binge. To ward off the winter chills for a bit longer and less calorifically here are some outings to warm the cockles of your heart.

Mira Miró
The Beelden aan Zee museum in Scheveningen has gathered together some 50 sculptures by Spanish surrealist artist Joan Miró (1893-1983). The selection of painted bronzes provides an insight into the development of Miró as a sculptor. They look just as jolly and colourful as his drawings and paintings but don’t be fooled. “If by some chance there is something lighthearted in my work, it was probably prompted by the need to escape the tragic side of my temperament. Life seems to me absurd,” Miró said. Until March 2. Website 

Go PAFF
The Parool Film Fest or PAFF in Amsterdam is your chance to (pre) view the latest films and nominate three favourites which can be seen at the Best of the Fest on October 6 in the Ketelhuis. Among the many new films on offer are La Cocina, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year to great acclaim, and Monsieur Aznavour, a biopic about the life and struggles of one of France’s most brilliant chansonniers. October 2-6. Website

Leave Trumpland
Greg Shapiro, the “American Netherlander” is back on the road this month with his show “Leaving Trumpland 2.0: No country for old men”. Shapiro hit the big time with his Trump impressions for Arjan Lubach and takes great pleasure in further ridiculing the former president in this occasionally deeply personal show. Plenty of laughs guaranteed. Dates nationwide

Guess a disability at the No Limits Festival
The STET English language theatre in The Hague presents the No Limits Festival featuring performances, plays and workshops by disabled artists from across Europe and Canada. Many of the performances have a wry and often humorous take on subjects which society deemed inaccessible to disabled people, such as sex, not to mention quite a few public amenities.

The lineup includes Chris Dodd, who plays a deaf public speaker in Deafy, who arrives late at the venue and finds all is not as it seems. The Blue Badge Bunch challenges the public to “guess the disability” with host Benny Shakes while panelists battle it out in “the show where disadvantage is an advantage!” October 4 and 5. Website

Prepare to be impressed
The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam celebrates 150 years of Impressionism with works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley and Paul Cézanne, all from Dutch museums and private collections.

How did they get here? That was in large part due to Vincent’s brother Theo and other art dealers. But not everyone was charmed by the Impressionists and that, the Van Gogh suggests, is the reason why quite a few masterpieces got away. From October 11. Website

Snap up some cheap art
Amsterdam is hosting the Affordable Art Fair for people who haven’t got a lot to spend but who know what they like. Some 1000 artworks from 65 galleries will be on show at the Kromhouthal for skinflints and poor art lovers alike. You do have to fork out almost €16 for the privilege of a browse, however, so an initial investment will have to be made. October 9-13. Website

Come see the odd couple
The Polanentheater in Amsterdam is hosting a performance of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple by the Playhouse theatre group. It’s the well-known but never boring story of neurotic Felix and slovenly Oscar who find themselves living uncomfortably together after their wives divorced them and who would blame them.  October 10-13. Website

Check out the pretty skirts
The Kunstmuseum in The Hague is putting Christian Dior centre stage, particularly his New Look that took the fashionable world by storm and gave women lots of legroom.

The exhibition Dior – A New Look also takes in Dior’s successors through the decades, including Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and current and only female designer Maria Grazia Chiuri. Until January 26. Website

Catch a kimono
The museum for all things Japanese, the Sieboldhuis in Leiden, is exploring the elegant world of the kimono. The kimono for men and children, the exhibition tells us, was often used as a canvas to express patriotic feelings, with illustrations of the country’s technological and industrial strides! The kimonos worn by women were often based on Western art. They are all so gorgeous and simple it is a mystery why all the world does not wear one. Kimono, a reflection of modern times is on until December 8. Website

Join the textile activists
Textile activism is a thing and Joyce Overheul is one of its proponents. The image of handicrafts may be staid but in the right hands, the needle is an effective instrument for sharp social comment.

In her show at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht Donald Trump is variously rendered as a devil and a simpering child as Overheul literally embroiders on what can be seen in the photographs of the former president. A press photo is the basis of a bleak work depicting refugees at Ter Apel, stating “The worst is yet to come”. Live, Laugh, Leidmotief is on until November 17. Website

Find the lost museum
The Mauritshuis in The Hague delves into its past with The Lost Museum. Between 1822 and 1875 the ground floor of the museum was home to the Royal Cabinet of Rarities, fruit of the 19th century mania for collecting the weird and the wonderful.

Some of the over 10,000 objects are again on show, from dolls, vases and scent bottles to suits of armour, a pagoda and plaited hair. In short, everything but the kitchen sink, although one may be lurking in a corner. The Lost Museum is on until January 5. Website

Hear the call of the o’o

The Allard Pierson in Amsterdam is shining the spotlight on the relationship of West-Europeans with the natural environment from the 16th to the 19th century. The craze to collect and document nature on foreign shores, which flourished in the 19th century in particular, contributed to its destruction but at home too the natural environment was both admired and exploited.

The call of the o’o – Nature under pressure is about what once was and is now no longer, like the Hawaiian o’o, a bird whose call was last heard in 1985 (but can be heard on a recording). Drawings, books and prints from the museum’s library illustrate how nature was and continues to be (mis)treated by man. Until January 26. Website