"Dat is niet Kerst papier!" "That is not Christmas paper!"

Living in a foreign country is quite the interesting experience, and education about the host country frequently comes in unexpected ways.

I moved to The Netherlands in December of 2005, but I still feel clueless about many things in the culture around me.

I was quite proud of myself this year, informing our housemate (his first year as an expat) about the whole Sinterklaas and Zwaart Piet stuff, as I covered in the previous post. But I was only partially getting a grip on Dutch Christmas customs, as a recent customer informed me.

A few days before December 5 a customer made a purchase that she wanted gift wrapped. I reached for our holiday paper, shown above left. "Do you have Christmas paper?" she asked. "Yes, I said, holding it closer to her, "we have this, would you like red or blue?" She looked unsatisfied. "Maar, dat is niet Kerst papier; dat is Sinterklaas papier." ("But, that is not Christmas paper, that is Sinterklaas paper.")

The light dawned. Oooooooooooh. So, it's not all one big season from the arrival of Sinterklaas at the end of November to December 25. No no no. I had that all wrong. Instead...Sinterklaas arrives and all the zwaart piets dance around and give the kids goodies and all that. The kids put their shoes out on December 5 (and a carrot for the horse!) and they wake up to shoes filled with kruidnoten and chocolate coins and candy; along with presents from friends and family.

zwaart piet dolls with Quila

After December 6, the whole Sinterklaas bit is over. Anything smacking of Sinterklaas and zwaart Piet is taken down or discounted and the second phase of the holiday, Christmas, begins. My housemate ran out and grabbed a bunch of zwaart piet dolls, which my cat Quila found fun to pose with. These dolls have blue eyes, which is exactly what you see when scores of Dutch people dress as "Black Peter."

Until December 6 Christmas trees are not even available. But exactly on December 6th, BOOM they appeared on every street corner. Now the focus is on the traditional story of the birth of Christ, and only now are the lights appearing in the windows and so on. However, although it's not part of traditional Dutch culture, Santa Claus' image is now making an appearance here, but this is a distinct character, he is NOT Sinterklaas. We were completely wrong to have a small Christmas tree with ornament display before December 6 (forehead smack). Okay, it's been five years, time to catch on. Makes me wonder what other glaring cultural norms I am blind to.
Typical "Sinterklaas" (not Christmas!) candy, which we are now shoving down the throats of unsuspecting La Naranja customers, because if they don't eat this stuff we know we will, and we are desperately trying to watch our girlish figures over the holidays. In fact, we will discount anything in the shop ten percent if you eat some our candy. Please. Keep Bilderdijkstraat beautiful, and remove these sweets from our reach.

And, now, officially, Merry Christmas, everybody! Let the festivities begin!

exciting times

Dear readers, you have no idea how often I think of you. "I'm going to blog about that," is a phrase that spills out of my mouth at least once a week. Unfortunately, there's many a slip twixt that intention and its actuality.

I have an Amsterdam primer for visitors percolating on my back burner, but in the meantime, here is an excellent web article on some key Dutch phrases for visitors to know. Ik hope dat you vind het useful, or if not, you can bungle your way about the city mercilessly butchering their language like I do.

Ik probeer, maar, Nederlands is niet magelijk. (I try, but Dutch is not easy.)

What, you might ask, does this have to do with a giant cat? Not much, but I put this pic of our cat here (again, coz gosh it's so cute), sitting in a model of our shop, to let you know that "BIG THINGS" are coming soon to La Naranja.

For starters, we are excited to announce that we will soon be appearing YET AGAIN in one of the country's largest and most important newspapers, Het Parool. They invited us to participate in a little quiz whereby readers are asked to match a shop with the shopowner's home, and of course we jumped at the chance. I'll bet, that if you have never seen our home, you won't be able to match us up!!! So, that was good for a few day of butterflies in the stomachs and yes I was patting myself on the back for getting a new do.

Our biggest news, however, is that we will mark La Naranja's first year in business by welcoming a new partner under our roof, eerlijkHeerlijk. Stay tuned to this space for an invitation to the celebration! More details coming soon.

La Naranja in newsprint, Het Parool Saturday 24 April, 2010

We're so excited! Today's print version of the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool is out with their special annual living section, and they mention La Naranja in an article about shops from around the world. They also feature a photo of one of our tapestries. We believe we've already had visitors from the article. Whee! Yayyy! Thank you Het Parool!!!

Skirts on the line at La Naranja

I came up with a clothesline idea to showcase our new skirts in the display at La Naranja. I have fun watching the shadows they make in the afternoon. We started with a small number and more than half have sold, so we'll be getting more in the next few weeks. They really are adorable; and I have a few myself. They are reversible and snap together, so they are the perfect cover over jeans and leggings. The ladies love them!

Merry Christmas Eve from La Naranja!!!

Hello everybody! We're hunkered down for a long day, Christmas Eve here at La Naranja. For some reason, we decided to stay open until 8 pm today, so if you are having a wander down Bilderdijkstraat, stop on in and have a piece of honey candy from Las Alpujarras! We'll be closed tomorrow. Have a lovely Christmas, everyone.

Busy December!!!

Hi there everybody!!! Wow what a busy December it's been so far. Our winter display is up and we are busy with promotion at La Naranja and, just to make things interesting, we decided to move house at this time as well.


We have a new hood! After four lovely years in Oud West's yuppified Helmbersbuurt, living right smack dab next to Restaurant Blue Pepper, we have picked up our (way too many) belongings and headed southeast to a funky and friendly area on the edge of De Pijp. We are a stone's throw from both the Amstel river and the end of the Albert Cuyp market. I can't wait to explore!!!

Whee, new rugs!!

I'm so happy with the changes we made, now with all the pretty new colorful rugs in one room with the tapestries. It's so cozy down there, just in time for winter!!! People are loving our rugs! Thank heavens!! By George, we may have found our niche in Amsterdam. People do appreciate seeing nice things they've never seen before, and knowing what a tough time Spain is having now, I can't wait to sell everything we have at La Naranja and hurry back on a buying trip to help keep the Andalusian economy rolling.

Happy Thursday everybody, thanks for dropping by! If you are in Amsterdam, it's late shopping day, as it is every Thursday, and we will join the many shops that stay open until 9 p.m.

La Naranja - display window

Fall display at La Naranja

Tuesday, September 15

La Naranja will proudly open it's doors to the public on Tuesday, September 15, 2009

at least, that's the plan. Watch this space for the latest on La Naranja!

Day after tomorrow????

Well, naturally, the sign did not arrive today, so we won't open Tuesday, but it is looking like this week. We're down to days, now, fingers crossed!!!

Rumor has it....

That La Naranja is opening very soon .... perhaps even this very week! Could it be! Is it possible??? It's the mystery of the summer!!!!!!!! But the autumnal (heavy on the orange, of course) display must mean that something's afoot.....shhhhhh! It's a secret!!!! Tuesday? Did someone say Tuesday?

What shop?

At this point, we are very close to opening. But every time I say that, 100 more must-do-tasks magically appear between the utterance and said "O Day."

Every step has been chock full of surprises, most of which caused delays. I've been woefully neglectful of this blog, thus, I'm sure, disappointing legions of faithful readers *cough*. So, I'll offer a few photos of what's happening while we get things ready for O-Day. These are pictures of La Naranja products, the Spanish region that supplies our shop and La Naranja renovation in progress, enjoy!! Meanwhile, check out the latest on La Naranja news at www.lanaranja.nl

Back from Spain!

Hi Everyone! We're back from Las Alpujarras, a mountain range in Spain. What lovely unspoiled scenery, here's a sample. We found lots of nooks and crannies and collected all sort of goodies for La Naranja. We're waiting on some deliveries from Spain and doing the final preparations! Lots of great photos to sift through. Busy Busy Busy!

La Naranja

We have floor! Whee!!!






A man and his model...and did I mention floor?

Unusual Merchandise

"Welcome to our shop."

Our shop, La Naranja, will have unique things for sale, but the giant two-story cat is not one of them! Brett made a model of our shop here, so we can play with different arrangements of our goods. Our youngest cat Quila decided it was a perfect spot to sit pretty. Good girl.

La Naranja

Let the panic begin!!! We've done it! We've rented a store front in Amsterdam. We are on our way to becoming merchants in the Netherlands. We have a long way to go, and it was a long way to get here: one and half years of searching for a suitable space. But what a beautiful space it is, and will be in the weeks-months-years to come. Much to do, but we're happy about all of it. It's very exciting to drive down a new road. The only way to new things, eh?