What a year! Who doesn’t need a break? We really do.
As far as postings go, we had a tough time keeping up in general this year, but a lot stuff has been sorted to be able to post more regularly. We’ve upgraded a lot of things in the background.
It’s Christmas day now, and the plan is to eat easy-to-make yet but nice Christmas food and watch a few Christmas classics.
Like every year, co-blogger Branko will come up with a list of his favourite stories of 2020, which should be online at some point.
If you need very different Christmas music, there’s always our friends at Christmas a Go Go!
Happy Holidays from 24oranges HQ! Stay safe and stay sane!
ABN Amro’s mortgage portfolio has decreased by 0.3 billion euro because house owners have been making extra payments using their holiday bonuses, the troubled bank writes in its 
The number of Dutch tourists planning to spend their summer holiday in Greece is down 10% from last year. Competing countries like Spain and Turkey are up from last year, travel agent Steven van Nieuwenhuizen of D-Reizen 
If you were uncertain on whether to put the carrot for the horse in the left or the right shoe, whether to start singing Zie ginds komt de stoomboot or Sinterklaasje Bonne Bonne Bonne first, or whether it is allowed to make veiled references to the thing you had with your best friend’s wife in the poem you wrote for his surprise, fear not, NEN to the rescue! Last year, the Dutch Standards Institute (NEN) published its 
We’re in the middle of the six week school holiday period, so Dutch travel trailers have once again spread out across Europe. Not only do we have a reputation of traveling with trailers but also of bringing along our own food—what do you mean, we have to integrate too?
Queen’s Day 2008: if you weren’t dressed for the occasion, there were vendors more than willing to help you remedy that. After the nation-wide flea market we went dumpster diving, and as will happen we found some of our biggest treasures then.
The clash of holidays has also brought forward the Lintjesregen (rain of ribbons), the mass-awarding of royal decorations which takes place every year on Queen’s Day, the Dutch national holiday. Queen’s Day was traditionally held on the Queen’s birthday, but that tradition changed when Queen Beatrix ascended the throne in the 1980s. Beatrix’s birthday is in January, whereas her mother was born on the much warmer April 30, so it was decided that the latter day would be maintained.
