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How the Netherlands celebrates the new year
New Year is the beginning of the year and is an important holiday in any country, and the same is true in the Netherlands. The Dutch New Year is on the first day of January, which is New Year’s Day. The local name is Nieuwjaarsdag. The Dutch have many unique customs to celebrate the New Year.
Fireworks show
Dutch people usually gather with friends or family on New Year’s Eve or go to the city to watch open-air concerts and fireworks around the city. When the clock strikes midnight, the sky is deafening with colorful fireworks. However, before setting off fireworks, people need to check whether their location is a fireworks prohibited area (the downtown area of some cities includes a fireworks prohibited area)!
The largest fireworks display in the Netherlands is usually held in Rotterdam (Het Nationale Vuurwerk). Get together with your friends to watch the parade of lights along the new Maas and participate in the countdown to the new year. At exactly 0:00, the biggest and most spectacular fireworks display in the Netherlands will kick off on the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam.
From 22:00 to 02:00 on December 31st, only metro lines C and E will be running in Rotterdam. Metro line C will run every 10 minutes between Capelsebrug and Vijfsluizen, and metro line E will run between Meijersplein and Slinge. The subway station will be open between 22:00 and 02:00 for tourists to take the subway (the subway is free during this period).
Homemade firecrackers
The traditional way to welcome the New Year in the Netherlands is to “home-made” firecrackers. The Dutch would throw a carbide similar to gunpowder into an old-fashioned milk blender, and the gunpowder would spray out when ignited. On New Year’s Eve, the Dutch put these homemade firecrackers on the streets, parks and squares. For foreign tourists, the Netherlands is literally a “war zone” on New Year’s Eve. The Dutch would light up the sky with firecrackers, and the sound of all kinds of crackling explosions would continue until the early hours of the morning. Everyone must pay attention to safety.
Dancing till dawn at the Club
The Netherlands has the best DJs and a rich bar culture, and almost every club, bar, speakeasy will have something planned for New Year’s Eve where you can dance and burn your calories.
Giant bonfire show
In Europe, bonfire shows are a tradition to welcome the New Year, and the Netherlands is no exception. The biggest bonfires are set off on the coast of Scheveningen in The Hague. The huge bonfire show in The Hague in 2015 also broke the Guinness World Record.
Fried Dough – Oliebollen
In the Netherlands, New Year’s Eve without Oliebollen is not the end of the year. Oliebollen translated into Chinese is roughly Dutch-style doughnuts, made of flour, eggs, yeast, salt and warm milk or buttermilk batter, a certain amount of batter is fried in hot oil into balls and sprinkled with icing sugar – listen It tastes delicious. If you want to buy it, you can go to the city center and try to find a vending truck that sells Oliebollen.
2000 best-selling golden songs
Top 2000 is an annual marathon radio show in the Netherlands, hosted by NPO Radio 2, the national broadcaster of the Netherlands, which is listened to by more than half of the Dutch population each year. The broadcast will start from Christmas and continue until New Year’s Eve and will feature the 2,000 most popular songs selected by the Dutch, with the No. 1 song at midnight on New Year’s Eve (Queen is elected almost every year). “Bohemian Rhapsody”)
New Year’s Dive
Probably wanting to cool off from the crazy New Year’s Eve bashing. The Dutch like to hold a winter swimming event (Nieuwjaarsduik) on the first day of the new year. At Scheveningen Beach in The Hague, people gather here in woolen hats, bikinis or swimming shorts for a New Year’s winter swim. The registration fee for the event is 3 euros, and the event organizer, Unox, will donate 1 euro of the registration fee to the Dutch Food Bank (Nederlandse Voedselbanken).
