A lovely reply arrived earlier this month from the Netherlands. I had written to King Willem-Alexander & Queen Maxima to wish them a Merry Christmas.
The envelope is the usual from the couple. It features a crown with the words "Office of the Royal House" written underneath in Dutch. The back of the envelope is blank.
Inside is the couple's Christmas Card. The front of the card features a lovely winter scene. This card is from UNICEF and is part of UNICEF NL's collection of Christmas Cards that they sell to the public. This card comes from a set of 5 called Winter Wonderland.
The inside of the card features the same message as past years, written in English and Dutch.
The card says:
Their Majesties The King and Queen of the Netherlands thank you, on behalf of the entire Royal Family, for your kind Christmas greetings.They send you their very best wishes for the year ahead.
Noordeinde PalaceThe Hague
This card may seem familiar to many of you, as we have seen it before. King Willem-Alexander & Queen Maxima buy a set of Christmas Cards from UNICEF in bulk every few years. They will use the cards until they run out and then buy new cards. Usually, there is a "transition year" where they sent out some of the old & new sets as they are using up their old cards.
This year is another transition year. Some received a card from the old set, Kerstdorp (Christmas Villiage) that was used from 2018-2020. And some received cards for the Winter Wonderland set. The Winter Wonderland set isn't a new design, however, they actually used this from 2015-2018.
We know this year's cards weren't leftovers from 2015-2018 because the inside of the card is different. The message is the same, as it always has been, but it is bilingual something they only started doing with the Kerstdorp (Christmas Villiage) cards.
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| Christmas 2015-2020 |
Of the two designs, I have 3 of 5 of the designs of the Winter Wonderland. & 1 of 5 of the Kerstdorp (Christmas Villiage). You can find the blog post on some of my past Christmas Replies from the couple here.
