Happy New Year, everyone. May this year bring blessings, happiness, joy, and luck to you and your family.

In this post, I am sharing the customs and the traditions of the Dutch and what I did–of course, I cannot take a cold dip.

New Year in the Netherlands

The Dutch really celebrate the new year, every year. And I mean, they really celebrate it. The top things they do, which, we can say are a cultural thing here now:

• Celebrate with sweets; they tend to give gifts, and mostly enjoy Oliebollen. The Oliebollen are a type of donuts (doughtnuts), and is a Dutch delicacy.
• Light up fireworks; this year alone the Dutch consumers spent over 129 million euros on fireworks. Which is a record high.
• Take a dip; the New Year’s Dive is a traditional dip in the beach. The residents go to beaches and take a dip, but definitely, stay careful and vigilant. While the primary points remain the biggest beaches, such as Scheveningen, you can take a dip in your nearest beach too. There was an event planned in Almere Haven for the residents.

My New Year

I wanted to do something different. While the year started similarly, I decided to do a clean up of my street on the first day of the year. In Almere, we had a lot of fireworks and all that firework left a mess on the street. It has become a bad habit that people who enjoy the fireworks do not clean up after themselves. This trash is left for days and sometimes for weeks. The local municipality does the cleaning over the course of the next days, but that is too much work on their hands alone.

So I decided to give them a hand.

I started by cleaning the street. The objective was:

1. Clean and remove all the debris from the street.
2. Put the debris in a plastic bag and dispose of properly in a metal container.

It took me about half an hour. A little bit more, but after the half an hour, the street was clean. The debris was removed.

Fun fact: I had a neighbor stop me and tell me that it was not my responsibility, and instead, the people who used the fireworks or the municipality should clean it up. That is a very interesting take, and I respect it, however, if there is a delay or perhaps the authorities are busy, it can be done by ourselves too. After all, I call it my home so it is my responsibility to keep it clean as well.

Missed Opportunities

I still feel that I missed out on wishing everything a blessed year in my street. I could not connect with everyone on my street, and that would be on my list for the coming year.

• For the neighbors, I would aim to deliver at least a wishing card to give greetings.
• For the neighbors, that I have not had an interaction with, I will plan to have at least a coffee with them.
• For the neighbors, that I have already met at least once, I would plan an activity.

The new year should give me a milestone to plan an activity and stay connected with my neighbors and community.