Marco was kind enough to take some photos of Bijenkorf’s Christmas tree for me earlier this week. This is a Christmas tree which starts on the 1st floor (2nd floor if you’re American) and goes up to the 4th floor. It is an interesting design this year:
And here is a close up of the ribbons hanging in the tree:
If you are interested, you can also see Bijenkorf’s Christmas tree in 2023 and 2022.
Additional Christmas decorations have been added to ‘t Goude Hooft since the last blog post I wrote:
And here is a close up:
It has been looking pretty festive in the city centre these last few weeks!
This year we have a bit of a red and white theme going on in our tree:
Somewhat accidental, but somehow still a bit on purpose. A coworker gave me the mushroom ornament this year, so I immediately hung it up in the tree. Here’s a close up of Mickey and his mushroom:
Now I want to play Super Mario Brothers 3 again…
De Passage (literally “The Passage”) is a covered shopping area in The Hague’s city centre. Here’s a look at the 2024 Christmas tree which arrived a few days ago:
It’s in the middle of the old part of De Passage, visible from every part. To be fair, I think it is the same decorations as last year, but that doesn’t detract from it. It does make me realize I should check if Bijenkorf has their Christmas tree up yet, though…
There is now a Christmas tree by ‘t Goude hooft (the oldest inn in The Hague).
Of course, there’s so much light in this area that it is difficult to see the decorations on the hotel itself, but it is the building on the right where it says “bites to go”. The last part is an automat (English Wikipedia) to purchase food at any hour of the day. I haven’t checked in a while to see if it still has food in it, though.
On the right is the clothing store The Sting. The building is nicknamed either “the cookie jar” or the “candy jar”. If you don’t believe me, check out the Dutch Wikipedia page.
Here’s a look at the holiday decorations around the Hoogstraat (=high street), also called the Noordeinde (=north end).
Schaap en Citroen, pictured on the right, is a jewelry store. The first store opened in Utrecht in 1888 and the location in The Hague opened in 1921.
Last week the city added a Christmas tree to the Grote Markstraat, the main shopping street in The Hague’s city centre.
It’s nice, but the photo definitely shows the weather we have been experiencing the last few weeks. Cold, rain, you name it. The Netherlands even saw some snow in the north of the country last week (and when it melted, it weakened some train tracks, causing a bit of chaos up there). Bring on the winter?
Spotted at the local Lego store on the Spuistraat:
Storks, tulip fields, windmills… it sums up the touristy side of the Netherlands (and The Hague with the stork) nicely.
Earlier this month a very large and lit up teddy bear was added to The Hague Central train station for the holidays:
It’s also functional – it provides a few places to sit by its legs, although it is hard to tell from this angle.
The last week or so the crowds around the city centre have definitely picked up. But I was able to take a nice photo of the newest holiday decorations on the Spuistraat before the stores had opened:
I also took a photo of Spuistraat back in the summer of 2020, complete with street markings asking everyone to keep 1.5 meters distance from each other. In some places in the city you can still see the faint reminders of those markings, but they are almost (almost) gone.
Life in the Hague 