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AMSTERDAM Dutch government officials decided that this week—the week leading up to St. Patrick’s Day—would be the perfect time to take a little attention away from the Irish and announce that, this year, the Dutch will begin to celebrate a competing holiday. This holiday will be called Jan VanHaaken (pronounced “Yahn Van H-ah-ken”) Day.
Jan VanHaaken Day will be officially celebrated by all Dutch people—and, hopefully, by everyone around the world—each year on August 20th. Its purpose is to celebrate a great Dutch hero, who invented the garage sale in 1699. In a moment of inspiration, Jan realized that his neighbors—especially those really cheap Dutch people, who wash their paper plates and paper towels and reuse them—would be overjoyed (and maybe even break into a sweat) if he put all of his old junk in his carriage house and offered it to them at a really, really low price. He knew that all of his neighbors would buy his used, worthless junk—even if they had no use for it—just because it was so cheap. He also realized that, by selling all of this worthless junk, he would make a ton of money—money that he could even use to buy a new set of paper plates.
When asked about the competition with the Irish, Dutch government official Hans TenBroeke commented, “Think about it. Who really cares about some guy who got rid of some snakes? But garage sales! Now that’s a reason to celebrate!”
In honor of this great moment in Dutch history, Dutch people—and other really cheap people everywhere—will celebrate by throwing large parties, at which everyone will eat pigs in the blanket and things called “fat balls” (on paper plates, of course).
To get the rest of the world to take part in this celebration, the Dutch government has announced that the holiday will also include the consumption of large amounts of beer and (for the daring) a deadly Dutch gin called jenever. They had considered dying their alcohol in a nice Dutch blue but decided against it, since it would cost extra money.
Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
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Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
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