Merry Christmas, everyone! After a few videochats with family we are currently baking a pumpkin pie. The house smells really nice right now, as you might expect…
Here is my first Christmas gift from Marco – a stocking stuffer! Cute little Christmas themed socks, perfect for keeping my feet warm during the day. This has become more important since we started working from home.
And here is a look at the back of the stocks (the glitter part says Merry Christmas):
I wonder if I will start leaving glitter footprints with every step?
Marco and I just finished watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Wikipedia). It is something we do every year, along with A Christmas Story (Wikipedia). You don’t mess with success like that. Luckily Marco was okay with marrying into this ritual. Admittedly, he already had the DVD box set (Vacation, European vacation, Christmas vacation and Vegas vacation).
I love going through the flyers placed into old DVDs like this. Most of the flyers here were about piracy, although there was one flyer listing all of the trailers coming out around the time this DVD set did.
Here are two of the flyers about piracy:
The one on the right talks about how they cried when they saw the poor quality of the bootleg DVD they bought (not really even talking about streaming yet! – just the purchase of a bootleg copy). The one on the left reminds people that bootleg DVDs are usually filmed in the back of the cinema, featuring obscured footage and muffled sound. So yeah, I keep the flyers to be amused year after year.
In other news: if you have some knowledge of Dutch (and are okay with subtitles in The Hague dialect), you should check out this video from two HTM workers sung to the tune of “Oh Oh Den Haag”, talking about how much the workers miss seeing everyone. HTM is The Hague’s public transportation company and as you might expect patronage has dropped drastically this year. As expected, HTM also wishes everyone happy holidays and a happy new year, with good health, love and happiness. Oh, and there is a bit of fake snow…
These were the bonbons on offer at Simon Lévelt in De Passage a few weeks back. Saturday, December 12 to be precise, before the lockdown rumors started. I had to stand in line; the store is quite small so only five customers are allowed in at a time. And of course the two people in front of me were a couple who wanted to go in together, probably to look at gifts. They were allowed in but they had to stay in the front of the store, not by the registers.
And why was I there? Lebkoeken!! (English Wikipedia). German Christmas cookies. I had to get them there, considering the Royal Christmas Fair was closed this year…
The store worker managing the line asked what I was looking for. She was able to point me to the display so I didn’t have to wander around looking for them. The line outside the store was only getting longer at that point so it was probably for the best. (Note: Simon Lévelt is open as normal. Since they sell primarily tea, coffee and chocolate they are an essential business.)
Back when the first wave started in the spring, Marco, Roger and I ordered bento box take out from Restaurant SET here in The Hague. It was yummmmmy. We received two €10 coupons for use later in 2020:
It was an unexpected surprise! The coupons are valid for dine-in (everything except High Tea) through 31 December 2020.
Hmph. 31 December 2020? Opps. I guess we waited a bit too long there, since restaurants aren’t allowed to be open for dine-in at the moment. Regardless, the branches in The Hague and Rotterdam are completely closed anyway, with a potential date of reopening set for 19 January, if the lockdown ends on that date as scheduled.
Here is a look at the ice cream I ordered last year for my birthday:
Tell me you don’t think that is the cutest thing ever.
On my way to the grocery store this morning I took some photos of this year’s Christmas tree in the Passage:
A new detail this year is the plants down the middle, to help remind people to stay on the right side while walking. It will be interesting to see if the plants are still around next year at this time, or if they really were just temporary during the Covid-19 crisis…
And here is a close up look. I found it a bit weird to be walking past stores today. For the most part everything was closed, but it felt more like a Sunday rather than closed for five weeks. Most of the stores had their lights on and there were not many signs in the windows saying they would be closed for a longer period of time.
Strangely enough when I walked past Peek & Cloppenburg (a clothing store), they did seem to be open. However maybe I saw incorrectly. The lights were on, the doors were wide open, and there were a few people going through the sweaters… so who knows.
The Dutch website indebuurt.nl (in the neighborhood) usually has a photo series called Toen & Nu or Then & Now. Today’s photo series only showed a difference of four days, but it was an important four days: 13 December and 16 December. In other words, before and after the five week lockdown came into effect.
The discussion about who can stay open during the lockdown and who must close continued today. Hema, a general merchandise retail store, decided to open today. Only essential items like food, baby clothes and toiletries were available. The original government ruling said that if it at least 30% of the items sold were essential, then that part of the store with essential items could remain open. The rest of the inventory would be unavailable for sale. (If the store sold at least 70% essential items the entire store could remain open.) Because at least 30% of what Hema sells is essential they decided to open yesterday. Problem is, other chains including Action and Wibra then decided they would re-open from tomorrow. And those stores’ stock is even less essential than Hema’s in my opinion.
That meant the Dutch cabinet went back into discussions last night and this morning. The end result: the 30% ruling is now gone, so you need to sell at least 70% essential items to stay open.
Fotoseries: Stil in Den Haag op de eerste dag van de lockdown, or Photos: Silence in The Hague on the first day of the lockdown [Tuesday]. Photos 9 and 11 are a bit political, since the pink ‘soon available for renting’ signs have the Dutch prime minister and the Health minister’s name listed as the realtor (Rutte and De Jonge).
Anderhalvemetersamenleving or 1-and-a-half-meters-society is Van Dale’s word of the year for 2020 (article from dutchnews.nl). Van Dale is a Dutch dictionary company. Anderhalvemetersamenleving took 30% of the vote, with 12,000 votes cast.
Here are a few interesting articles about the lockdown that are available in Dutch from nos.nl:
Hoe een telefoontje van Van Dissel alles veranderde – How a phone call from Van Dissel [Dutch virologist] changed everything. It’s an article about how we went from the press conference on the 8th to the hard lockdown announced last night. That’s less then a week if you are counting.
Above is a picture taken in De Passage (a covered shopping area) in The Hague last weekend. I thought it was cute to see the stockings hiding behind the windows on the second floor, which isn’t accessible to shoppers.
The Dutch minister held an emergency speech this evening to announce a hard lockdown beginning tonight at midnight. Just like the speech in March earlier this year, it took place in his work office at the Binnenhof (nicknamed Torentjeor “Little tower” – English Wikipedia).
…and because of this choice of location, it was much easier for protestors to make themselves heard, on live television, with whistling, shouting and general noisemaking. Oh well. Rutte did make mention of it halfway through his speech, pointing outside and saying “It is isn’t an innocent flu as some people outside here think”.
Here is a list of the most important rules, which take affect at midnight tonight and last until at least 19 January:
non-essential stores are closed (some of the exceptions are supermarkets, pet stores, pharmacies, gas stations and banks)
non-medical “contact” jobs are closed (hair stylists, massage parlors, nail salons, etc.) Medical “contact” jobs like dentists or physiotherapists are exempt.
from Wednesday all schools (elementary through university) are closed with online education the norm. There are a few exceptions for exams or “vulnerable” students. Daycares are also closed, except for parents with vital jobs.
only two guests are allowed per day (which the exception of December 24, 25 and 26 when you can have three guests per day). Groups outside can only consist of one household or of two persons total.
the urgent advice is again “stay at home as much as possible” and “don’t travel overseas or book trips until at least 15 March”.
museums, zoos, theaters and theme parks are closed. Libraries are also closed, although Rutte mentioned an exception for patrons to pick up and bring back reserved books or allow vulnerable youth to do their homework there. Whether or not the library offers this service is another thing.
indoor gyms will close. Some activity is allowed outside but only in groups of two with 1.5 meters distance. Youth under 18 can still exercise in groups, however.
The urgent advice of “work as much as possible from home” is still in effect.
At the moment the next press conference is scheduled for 12 January, when the government will discuss the next steps leading up to 19 January, the current end date for the hard lockdown.
Check out this Christmas tree which I saw by the Plein in The Hague:
Christmas tree near the statue of Willem de Oranje
It’s a cute Christmas tree, but I will admit it looks like someone had a bit too much fun with strips of toilet paper at the bottom. I assume it is actually tinsel, though.
I saw an even more creative Christmas tree over on the r/thenetherlands Reddit page:
(Alternative Christmas tree in Maastricht at the “Our Lady plaza”.) Those are café/restaurant chairs. Since the cafés and restaurants are only open for takeout or delivery these days, why not re-use them (or store them) as a Christmas tree? The best part: In the back on the left of the photo you see the hint of another Christmas tree.
The last few days have seen the number of coronavirus cases skyrocket. We’re now back to around 10,000 cases a day. There was an emergency meeting of the safety regions and the government today, with a few additional meetings tomorrow. It is unclear if they will hold a press conference this coming Tuesday or if they will hold it tomorrow, one day earlier than they usually would (press conferences generally happen on Tuesdays).
There are a few measures that could be taken:
closure of ‘through’ or ‘transfer’ locations where a lot of people meet, for example libraries, movie theatres, zoos, cinemas, etc.
closure of all not-essential stores (everything except supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.)
closing of schools
Of these I think either the first two are more likely. Interestingly the Netherlands actually did not close essential stores during the first wave back in March / April. It was always the store’s choice to close or not. However, Germany has also announced a hard lockdown that will last through 10 January so some are speculating that German tourists will travel across the border to do their Christmas shopping here unless we also go into a hard lockdown as well.
