Bijenkorf in The Hague celebrated its 100th anniversary over the weekend. Marco took a lovely picture of the decorations on the outside:
Of course the decorations are in yellow and green, the colors of The Hague flag.
And because I think they are awesome, here’s a look at some of the stained glass inside the staircases. One great reason to skip the elevator:
In theory this was the last year that fireworks could be purchased for New Year’s Eve in the Netherlands. I say in theory because the government said they were banning it, but they still need to work out compensation for the companies who sell fireworks. But I do expect it will be the last year.
Here’s a look at the aftermath in just one corner of The Hague the day after:
A lot of people don’t clean up after themselves as they expect the city will do it for them…
You can also check out a short 3 minute video of fireworks over The Hague just after midnight on New Year’s Eve.
And, just because I’ll forget to post otherwise, here’s a final picture of the holiday displays by Bijenkorf from a few weeks back:
In other news, we got some snow this weekend! The people setting off fireworks got really lucky because the weather turned on January 1, after the festivities were over. Of course, it is mostly slush here in The Hague. But there are some good pictures out there – check out Reddit for some beautiful pictures someone took today in The Hague.
Here’s a look at Bijenkorf’s Christmas tree for 2025:
The Christmas area on the third floor also had bears which ever so slightly moved.
I do like the use of colored lights this year. A lot of places in the Netherlands only have soft white lights. The gold symbols on the tree are pictures of a teddy bear, Bijenkorf shopping bag, and Christmas present. The longer rectangle one is the symbol for the Bijenkorf in Amsterdam. You can also buy it as a Christmas ornament…
That picture makes it seem like the store was fairly empty, but that was most definitely not the case. It was a bit of a madhouse, but the ornaments are a bit further in. This was near the beginning of the section, by the escalators.
In my last post I mentioned the Christmas tram. Unfortunately, it got into a (minor) accident the next day (omroepwest.nl), although it was back in service quickly. Accidents between trams and cars happens a lot. A bit more unexpected was the accident earlier this week when the switch which allows the tram to change tracks broke and shot through the floor of the tram, slightly injuring one of the passengers. A few pictures into the article you can see the damage to the floor. Crazy stuff.
The holiday window decorations are now in place by Bijenkorf, a high-end department store here in The Hague. Here’s a look at one of the windows:
The window reads: “Ook 100 jaar geleden bezorgde de Bijenkorf al aan huis”, or “100 years ago, de Bijenkorf was already making home deliveries”.
I found a news article which mentioned that their Christmas departments opened on 11 September (!). It’s early, of course, but going to Bijenkorf to look at Christmas ornaments and other decorations is a tradition for a lot of families. It sort of reminds me of the mall scene in A Christmas Story, only there is no Santa!
Here’s a view of the Grote Marktstraat from the second floor of Uniqlo:
Interestingly, if I held my camera just a bit higher, everything got a brownish tint to it. It looks cool, even if it wasn’t the true colors at the time.
The building on the right side of the photo is Bijenkorf (literally: Beehive). If you’re ever there, take the stairs! That way you can see the impressive stained glass windows – see also this Reddit post.
It’s hard to imagine this street used to be a normal street with buses and trams running down it! See also this post in Dutch from indebuurt.nl.
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.
I was in Bijenkorf yesterday picking up a greeting card when I spotted a sign that the Christmas section was available on the third floor. Of course I just had to see for myself…
It’s true. So I decided to take a few photos of ornaments. The soy sauce because the animal was cute.
And this because it is oliebollen (Wikipedia). Yum.
Oh, and stayed tuned for pictures of the oliebollen stand on the Grote Marktstraat, perhaps. Marco and Roger spotted it yesterday after we went to the movies (we saw Transformers One), although we suspect that the stand won’t open until Tuesday (October 1). It is always interesting how it either opens on October 1 or November 1. Pre-covid it wouldn’t be allowed to set up shop before November 1, but they made an exception for a few years in 2020-2021. But I thought last year it didn’t open until November 1.
Anyway – it is almost oliebollen time!
Here is a look at the Christmas tree at Bijenkorf’s department store this year:
And of course, I’m not that big a fan of heights (this Christmas tree is about 3-4 floors high), hence the railing in the middle. That was about the closest that I wanted to get when photographing it.
Bijenkorf’s Christmas tree in 2021 (not that different from this year’s really)
Bijenkorf’s Christmas tree in 2019
Bijenkorf’s Christmas tree in 2018
…and back in 2015, with more decorations than it has now. It looks like they have scaled back in recent years.
Bijenkorf is a high-end department store comparable to Macy’s in the US. Every year they hang up some gorgeous holiday lights and they decorate their store front windows for Sinterklaas (5 December holiday) and Christmas. The lights went up in early November this year, even before we left for New Year City. Here’s a look at a few of their Sinterklaas themed windows.
You can tell it is Sinterklaas because the child in the middle is holding the staff of Sinterklaas. What’s a Sinterklaas party without fashionable clothes and lots of gifts? Speaking of which, if you want to make sure kids in The Hague and Amsterdam area have gifts to open on 5 December, consider donating to Sintvoorieder1 (official website in Dutch). During their latest toy drive they received about 47,000 gifts for 22,500 children which is just awesome. The link is from omroepwest.nl in Dutch.
Happy Sinterklaas (in advance)!
Here is a quick look at the Christmas decorations at Bijenkorf, a high-end store here in The Hague. They are also the store with the beautiful Christmas window displays each year; see also this year’s post about those.
First off, the very tall Christmas tree (spanning about 4 floors) which changes every year. They usually put it up before Sinterklaas and decorate it for that December 5 holiday first, but I didn’t get any pictures of those decorations this year. Also, sorry about the not getting closer to take the photo :), but times like this bring out my slight fear of heights!
Random Christmas table display.
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