Christmas trees made of bread (Or: Breakfast time)

Posted on December 28, 2020 by Niki

On the second day of Christmas (December 26), Marco and I had a Christmas tree for breakfast:

A Christmas tree made of bread, that is! Marco found it at Albert Heijn, one of the local grocery stores. We ate it with the usual hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles) and speculoos paste.

In other news: you can legally turn in fireworks today and tomorrow in The Hague (omroepwest.nl, article in Dutch). Today 207 kilos (457 pounds) was turned in. You can turn in up to 25 kilos of fireworks, even fireworks that are usually in the ‘illegal category’, without being fined.

The reason the city is organizing this is because it is illegal to possess fireworks outside of the few days around the New Year’s Eve holiday (those are also the only days you can legally possess fireworks). This year The Hague said that setting off fireworks would be illegal to keep hospital visits low.

You don’t legally have a reason to have them in your house and you can’t legally set them off, so unless you want to illegally store them for a year, turning them in now is your best option.

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More Christmas trees (Or: A peek at De Haagsche Bluf)

Posted on December 27, 2020 by Niki

A few days ago I wandered into the Haagsche Bluf (denhaag.com, English) to take a quick picture of their Christmas tree. The Haagsche Bluf is a tiny, outdoor high-end shopping area tucked away in The Hague’s city centre:

In other news, Omroep West (a local news site and channel) will be showing a short documentary later today about the New Year’s Eve riots that occurred in the 70s, 80s and 90s here in The Hague. The document will air tonight at 18:00 and will be available later (I assume) on this page.

Documentaire over kerstbomen rausen in Den Haag: ‘Alles ging op het vuur’ from omroepwest.nl. Documentary about stealing Christmas trees in The Hague: ‘Everything was thrown into the fire’. Rausen is slang in The Hague’s dialect for stealing.

The Hague was well known for burning Christmas trees, cars, couches, chairs, bikes, you name it. At the height of the mania Christmas trees and other flammable materials were stolen from rival groups, occasionally leading to violent injuries and death. The damage cost the city millions of guldens every year (guldens was the Dutch currency before the euro was adopted). In the end the city started organizing their own parties so that people would come to the ‘official’ parties and cause less damage on their own.

The bonfires which happened on the beaches of Scheveningen and Duindorp were the result of the city attempting to control the riots. This worked out okay until two years ago when the bonfires were out of control and spawned fire tornados (!, video from bbc.com). Last year permits were not given to hold the bonfires again due to lingering safety issues and this year the bonfires were cancelled due to corona measures.

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Guardians of the Christmas tree (Or: A reindeer and a bear)

Posted on December 26, 2020 by Niki

Here is our Christmas tree this year, the presents guarded by a reindeer and a bear:

Merry (second day of) Christmas, everyone!

(The stuffed bear and the stuffed reindeer were bought at Xenos.)

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Merry Christmas (Or: Stocking stuffers)

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Niki

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?

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A Christmas ritual (Or: The viewing of Christmas Vacation)

Posted on December 24, 2020 by Niki

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…

Ho Ho Den Haag – YouTube

On that note – Enjoy your Christmas Eve.

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Chocolate mania (Or: Bonbons by Simon Levelt)

Posted on December 23, 2020 by Niki

Anyone up for some chocolate?

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.)

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Lange Poten on a Friday morning (Or: Lockdown edition)

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Niki

Last Friday I took a photo of the Lange Poten street during lockdown:

As you can see it was pretty quiet. I believe the only store open on this street was Kruidvat, a pharmacy/general store (for those Americans among us, think Walgreens).

If you know a bit of Dutch, check out this YouTube video entitled: “#HoujeHaags – Have a Royal Winter“, about how Haagenaars (people from The Hague) have kept strong during 2020.

Christmas card boom, as PostNL processes 14 million cards a day from dutchnews.nl. On a normal day they process about 7 million cards. Crazy! I would like to think I helped out a bit with that surge.

Dutch scientists help find way to predict serious coronavirus cases, also from dutchnews.nl.

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Lost chances (Or: Coupon for Restaurant SET in The Hague)

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Niki

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.

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Library services during the lockdown (Or: Delivery and pickup)

Posted on December 20, 2020 by Niki

The Hague’s library system has limited options for alternative service during the lockdown which will last until (at least) 19 January.

Patrons who are aged 70 or older can request a one-off delivery of up to 6 chosen titles (including up to 1 DVD). The books will come from the Central Library and the patron can also request a genre instead of specific titles or write ‘no preference’ in the title field. There is a message in fine print saying the library understands that filling out a form online is not always the easiest thing for this age group to do, but they hope that relatives might be able to help out with filling in the form.

All library patrons can fill out a form to request a bag of 5 books. In this case it is based on genre, not specific titles. Perhaps you might find an unexpectedly awesome book this way. The patron can then pick up the bag at one of the neighborhood libraries (but not at the Central Library). The books will come from the same library where the pickup will occur.

The library also offers some online activities via a service called Bieb070@Home. (Bieb = Library. 070 = area code for The Hague.) The list of upcoming events includes a video of an online Christmas concert by the group “On The Jazz”, an interview in January with the city’s archeologist (yes, we have an archeologist) and more.

The Hague’s library system has also been heavily promoting the option of checking out e-books and audio books as well via their recently renewed Online Bibliotheek or “Online library” app. The only downside is that most of the books are in Dutch, but I found it pretty easy to use when I looked at it a few months back.

I can’t believe we’re almost at Christmas already… insane!

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Rotating girls with pearl earrings (Or: Mauritshuis at Christmas time)

Posted on December 19, 2020 by Niki

I was able to get a few photos of the Mauritshuis museum during a short walk this week. What do you think of the Christmas tree?

Mauritshuis is most known for Vermeer’s The Girl with a Pearl Earring. You can see a homage to this behind the right pillar in the image – but it is not exactly the painting, either. It is a digital display where the head and outfit change slightly every few seconds.

As you can see above, now the photo is of someone else with a blue cap instead of a headscarf.

You can also visit the museum virtually via this link (it is like Google Map’s Street View).

And a fun bit of news, an article from indebuurt.nl about the many face masks The Hague’s new mayor wears: De vele verschillende mondkapjes van de Haagse burgemeester Jan van Zanen.

Page 1: a face mask with The Hague’s yellow and green colors. Page 2: a face mask with a The Girl with a Pearl Earring design. Page 3: a face mask from Museon, a science and culture museum in The Hague. Page 4: a face mask from HTM, The Hague’s public transportation company. Page 5: a face mask from a local soccer club. Page 6: a face mask with a depiction of Haagse Harry. Page 7: no idea, really.

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