Posts Tagged With: New Year’s Eve

Fireworks in The Hague (Or: The final edition?)

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Niki

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.

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Holiday lights on New Year’s Eve (Or: By the statue of Johan de Witt)

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Niki

Last night I took a few pictures of the holiday lights by Steltman Jewelers, with the statue of Johan de Witt (English Wikipedia) in the foreground.

This was taken a bit after 17:00, as darkness was falling, but before the Netherlands turned into the warzone they are known for on New Year’s Eve. If you don’t know what I mean, check out this four minute video from last night’s fireworks in The Hague, but make sure you turn down your sound first! Or check out the bonfire and (legal) fireworks celebration held in Scheveningen on Monday. It should have also been last night, but it was moved forward a day due to high winds last night.

Here is a close up of the holiday lights:

Happy New Year’s! Have a great 2025.

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Happy New Year! (Or: Oliebollen time)

Posted on January 1, 2023 by Niki

Happy 2023, everyone!

Marco and I made oliebollen a few days ago. It’s a donut-like snack that you fry in oil and then cover in powdered sugar.

Of course, purists would say that donuts took their inspiration from oliebollen, not the other way around.

I also purchased some apple beignets from the oliebollen stand at the Grote Markt yesterday. New Year’s Eve is the busiest time of the season for oliebollen stands; this particular one opens at 06:00 on New Year’s Eve.

Here is a look at some photos of the New Year Eve’s fireworks above The Hague, from regio15.nl (article in Dutch).

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Sweet treats (Or: Van Delft store in The Hague)

Posted on December 27, 2022 by Niki

Earlier this month Marco and I visited the Van Delft store in The Hague. They are well-known for their stroopwafels, kruidnoten and pepernoten.

Here is a look at their store setup this year:

Above: a look at some of the kruidnoten flavors they have on sale.

A close up look. Think of flavors like intense orange, disco dip, white chocolate, dark roasted coffee, etc. I bought a bag of the dark roasted coffee flavor. Yum! Of course, kruidnoten are a treat for Sinterklaas (5 December) so they aren’t being sold at the moment.

In other news

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New Years Eve guests (Or: Teddy bears)

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Niki

For New Year’s Eve, Marco and I spent the night at Roger’s as we always like to do. This time we had some guests over at the dinner table:

That’s right – a stuffed teddy bear and reindeer decided to pay us a visit in their Christmas best.

And not to be forgotten, the oliebollen-themed napkins that they were sharing. New Year’s Eve gourmetten (link to iamexpat.nl in English) does get a bit messy at times…

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Happy New Year! (Or: Another oliebollen photo)

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Niki

I did forget to post a picture of the oliebollen Marco and I made yesterday. Opps!

In the foreground is krentebollen (oliebollen with raisins) and in the background, just barely visible, is oliebollen (no raisins). I am a fan of the no-raisins variant, partially because raisins make everything sweeter. And I want to save my extra sweetness levels for a bit of powdered sugar. Although in the last few years or so I have realized that cinnamon sugar – just barely pictured in the background – is even better than powdered sugar. Although perhaps that opinion makes me a bit of a heretic…

Outside it is fairly quiet although I do hear the occasional boom from fireworks off in the distance. That is slightly surprising, since fireworks have been banned for the last two years thanks to corona. Even these fireworks have been illegally stored in people’s basements or they made the trip to Germany or Belgium to purchase fireworks. Hmmm.

Although who am I kidding. It is not surprising at all to hear fireworks today: Belgian border towns busy with firework-mad Dutch, despite the ban, from dutchnews.nl.

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A batch of homemade oliebollen (Or: 2021 New Year’s edition)

Posted on December 30, 2021 by Niki

Marco and I made oliebollen tonight (Wikipedia). Or, more accurately, Marco made oliebollen and I helped/looked cute/cleaned things occasionally. Now that we have a bit of experience, we’re definitely getting better and faster at making them. The longest wait is letting the raisins soak for 15 minutes and then letting the oliebollen dough rise for 45 minutes. You then fry them at around 190C/375F for about 3-4 minutes each.

This batch of oliebollen is for tomorrow evening’s New Year’s Eve festivities. I will also stop by the Grote Markt oliebollen stand (official website) while I am in the city centre to pick up a few apple beignets.

Speaking of oliebollen… Koopmans (a major distributor of boxes of oliebollen mix) forgot to put yeast into a small percentage of their boxes. Opps?

It’s not harmful, but the mix won’t rise at all, meaning your oliebollen will be more like bricks then fluffy donuts. It’s a bit of bad timing on their part as everyone and their mother bakes oliebollen around New Year’s Eve.

The funniest part? The affected products have a production code of L212447 and a timestamp between 02:30 and 05:00. Yeah, I wouldn’t be awake at that time of the day either, so it makes sense that someone forgot to press the button to add the yeast in…

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Is it a dance party? (Or: Is it a demonstration?)

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Niki

Keep in mind the last mayor of The Hague, Pauline Krikke, was forced to resign after the the damning report of the Scheveningen “fire rain” bonfires on New Year’s Eve 2018-19 and after corruption allegations into two city alderman (see this dutchnews.nl article in English).

This New Year’s Eve there was a demonstration in Duindorp. Duindorp and Scheveningen are right next to each other, each competing against the other to make the highest bonfire. That is until the 2018-19 accident when bonfires were banned. They were also banned on New Year’s 2019-20 because the safety permits couldn’t be obtained. Fast forward to this year when they were banned due to the corona measures.

On New Year’s Eve this year there was a demonstration in Duindorp, filled with hundreds of people dancing and singing in the afternoon:

Reports on Twitter suggested that this was not a demonstration at all but a party. The city investigated this claim (Gemeente Den Haag onderzoekt demonstratie met dansend publiek Duindorp – from nos.nl in Dutch), but the mayor denied this and said it was a demonstration.

Yesterday a report dropped on OmroepWest (a local Dutch news station) that the current mayor of The Hague, Jan van Zanen, not only knew that it was not a true demonstration but also that the city council paid €10,000 for festival lighting, with money “allocated for an ‘alternative programme’ to the regular New Year celebration”. Here is an article in English from DutchNews.nl:

Interesting. Though if it were true, it could be seen as attempt by the mayor and the city to prevent worse rioting and to distract the masses, as it were. Which in itself isn’t a bad thing, if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic at the moment.

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A game of Sequence (Or: I always choose blue)

Posted on January 3, 2021 by Niki

It does not matter what game it is – if there is an option to play blue, I play blue. Here is look at a game of Sequence (Wikipedia) we played at Roger’s recently:

The objective is to get five in a row. There are two copies of each card on the board (except jokers, which allow you to remove an opponent’s chip or add your own, depending on if it is a one-eyed jack or a two-eyed jack). The interesting thing is the cards on the board run in a haphazard fashion, so the queen of clubs might be next to a hearts card in one place on the board but next to club cards in the other place.

In other news – as if fireworks aren’t enough, car owners also have to worry about their car being set on fire this time of year. There were three car fires in the region last night alone:

Although admittedly people tend to set fire to cars year round, it just happens more often around New Year’s.

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Good start to the New Year (Or: Homemade oliebollen)

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Niki

Happy New Year! Yesterday morning Marco and I made oliebollen (Wikipedia) to bring Roger’s. Plain oliebollen for me and oliebollen with raisins for Marco and Roger. Yummy!

Thanks to the fireworks ban in the Netherlands, New Year’s Eve was a bit quieter than normal, although there were still a a lot of fireworks right before midnight and for a half hour or so afterwards. Most likely people had an old stash lying around that they hadn’t used last year – or they bought fireworks illegally.

There were still some issues, of course. In nearby Rijswijk, someone set a camper on fire. The only problem? There were gas tanks inside. Several people catch fire after blowing up a caravan from nltimes.nl. (On the one hand, warning: you will see people on fire. On the other hand, no one turned up in the hospital and the victims were long gone by the time the police arrived, so it seems their injuries were minor. If you can call being on fire minor.)

Firework ban widely ignored, but police report fewer incidents during New Year festivities from dutchnews.nl.

However, the Dutch Health ministry did report two thirds less dust or particles in the air last night compared with last year so most people obeyed the ban on fireworks. See also this article from nos.nl in Dutch. Local hospitals were also thankful that the evening was relatively calm: Ziekenhuizen dankbaar voor rustige jaarwisseling: ‘Hele andere nacht’ (from omroepwest.nl in Dutch).

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