Christmas is a happy time. International students who spend the holiday season in Groningen should keep that in mind when they experience how the Dutch act during Christmas time. These folks struggle constantly to avoid domestic violence and utter exhaustion.
1 Christmas eve
Everywhere in the Christian universe, Christmas starts on the evening of December 24. And, let’s not deny it, there are still some old Dutch folks that go to a good old mass or service at Christmas eve.
Over the last decades, however, most Dutch have embraced atheism (with such eagerness that all angels in heaven should be jealous). These post-modern Dutchmen consider going to church not-appropriate or, more precisely, an act of ultimate hypocrisy.
Thus, on Christmas eve most Dutch people zealously wait for the luring sound of church bells. That’s the moment they vigorously dedicate themselves to complaining about those depraved religious fanatics.
2 Christmas stress
Weeks before Christmas all magazines and TV shows are littered with items on Christmas. What to wear, what to do, what to eat, what to this, what to that, and of course quite the opposite of all such. Even though they should, the Dutch do not ignore this stupid hustle and bustle.
They try to follow recommendations they believe their neighbours will act upon. Which is not possible, of course, one of the reasons being that the neighbours will try to follow their example too.
The stress caused by this and other festivity preparations, has an official psychopathological label: Christmas stress. How to cope with this, the Dutch try to learn from magazines and TV shows they believe their neighbours watch.
3 Christmas morning
In the early dawn of Christmas day you might see women go bananas in the deserted streets of Groningen. These unlucky ones have forgotten to buy some essential ingredient for their Christmas dish.
As you probably have experienced with some regret, Dutch cuisine exists of the holy trinity potato, meat and vegetables (either mashed before being served or mashed on the plate). However, on one day every year, Dutch home chefs try to meet higher standards and this day happens to be Christmas day. Please, do take this ambition seriously. Anything less than superb is not done.
Supermarkets try to cash in on this and put high cuisine-like titles to their product lines. Delicieux, excellent, superieur, exclusief, appétit (if you want to look posh in Holland: use quasi French adjectives).
4 Christmas schedules
At noon most people are sick and tired of Christmas. That’s because they have consumed strange savoury pastry or some other food they do not recognize at all. It also happens to be the moment that some family members feel the urge to give the lady of the house a little hand in the kitchen. Unfortunately they cannot do this without giving other visitors an accusatory look or growl, especially those who tend to lose their temper easily.
The Dutch are very keen on scheduling, they know exactly whose turn it is to render so-called spontaneous assistance. They also know whose turn it actually was to host the gathering. Woe to this year’s fiend who evaded his duty.
5 Christmas beer
The rest of the day is filled with nearly fatal boredom. A nice walk in the drizzle, during which one severely nags about not having a White Christmas. The sound of the vacuum cleaner that is close at hand to remove the baubles that have fallen out of the Christmas tree. Multiple unsuccessful conciliatory talks (‘If you would not have done like you always do…’).
Want to try an old-Dutch family game? Then you múst try ganzenbord (gooseplate) once, (and you’ll never play again). Loads of sparkling appetizers (anything fancy, filthy and foreign will do). Half of the company is grumpy because beer is not considered to be a Christmas drink. Bickering about whether or not watching the telly completes this fairylike scene.
6 Christmas gourmet
Scientific research reveals that in spite of al all efforts, all scheduling and all attempts to equal the cuisine of star chefs, 87.9 percent of all Christmas meals consist of something the Dutch label as gourmet (French, remember?).
This ‘snug and cosy activity’ was invented in the seventies, when a Dutch housewife in desperate agony threw all ingredients on the table, screaming: ‘If you think you’d do a better job, just do it!’ Some do-it-yourself addicted uncle built a fire on the table and gourmet was born.
Ever since that day the Dutch spoil their Christmas afternoons with burning food in pans too small to fit anything on too low or too high little open fires. It’s a tradition to flavour the gourmet dish with too much alcohol (as a matter of fact: binge drinking is an absolute necessity).
7 Christmas reprise
The next morning the surviving family members wake up and realize the worst is yet to come. A sadist ruler (his name went into oblivion) officially proclaimed December 26 to be Second Christmas day. A day on which Dutchmen go out and have diner. 12.1 percent of them visit a restaurant that has gourmet on the menu.
The rest submit themselves to steengrillen in an eatery. Steengrillen is basically the same as gourmet, but instead of burning food on uncontrollable little fires they do so on mortally hot pavement stones.
8 Christmas conclusion
On December 1, 2015, the breaking news on national TV was that seventy percent of the Dutch hate Christmas. The newsreader’s eyes showed exactly the mix of disbelief, disappointment and determination that can be seen in the faces of the thirty percent of Christmas fans that will turn next year’s Christmas into another unforgettable, yet inevitable, failure.
