Four days after we left Secaucus, we are back at Jonathan and Irena's to celebrate New Year's Eve. There's a big party here tomorrow, and we're looking forward to welcome 2012.

Tomorrow morning we're frying oliebollen, a Dutch specialty.

When we drove in New Jersey this weekend I noticed that one of the car's low-beam headlights was broken. I stopped at two gas stations to see if they carried a replacement bulb, but I couldn't find them.

Today after work I went to the car dealership and they had the right type of bulb. I installed it myself.

The last two weeks of the year have begun. Our Christmas tree is up, my cubicle is nicely decorated and I'm listening to Sky.fm's Christmas station all day long.

This morning I have posted the year overview for 2009. It is only available to registered users of this site. Send me a message if you do not have an account yet or if you'd like me to reset your password. You should also be able to use your Facebook account to login.

We decorated our Christmas tree tonight.

We've been unpacking some more boxes this week and the second bedroom is getting ready. Today we brought several boxes with books and papers to my and Sasha's work.

On the way back home we did grocery shopping and bought our Christmas tree. It's a beautiful one, quite large. It's larger than we've had before so I'll get some extra lights tomorrow and will decorate it in the evening.

We went for a walk in the beautiful Huntley Meadows Park yesterday. It was around 3.30 pm and the sun was already low on the horizon. The park is an area with wetlands and there are many different types of birds in the wetlands and the lake. There's a boardwalk through the wet areas and several trails through the woods.

We are scouting for places where it's nice to go for a walk. Last weekend we walked part of the Washington & Old Dominion trail, which was nice but a quite busy with bicycles.

Minister Donner expects to present his proposal for modifying the Dutch nationality law to parliament before Christmas.

In October we wrote about Minister Donner's plan to eliminate dual nationality for Dutch citizen. The proposal, which has not yet been officially presented to the Tweede Kamer (the Dutch House of Representatives), will be sent to parliament before the Christmas break. Minister Donner answered this in response to questions by House member Gerard Schouw of the D66 party.

Importance of Dutch expats

The minister estimates that there are about 850,000 Dutch passport holders living abroad, but it is not known how many of them hold dual nationality. The minister "acknowledges the importance of Dutch expats for the Dutch economy and Dutch diplomatic relations".

Position of the Tweede Kamer

The new law, which if it was accepted would have a significant negative effect on Dutch citizens living abroad, is controversial. A majority of parties in the Tweede Kamer has spoken in support of Dutch citizens abroad who could no longer maintain their Dutch nationality when applying for foreign citizenship.

On November 22nd a motion was brought forward to ask the minister to reconsider the aspects of the proposal that would impact Dutch citizens abroad. The motion did not get a majority in the Tweede Kamer though since the VVD did not support it, on technical grounds. Eelco Keij, who initiated the online petition against the proposal, remains optimistic: "This was just a procedural move by the VVD. When it comes to the content, they already publicly stated they are on our side."

The petition by Dutch citizens abroad has received almost 19,000 signatures and significant coverage in the Dutch media. More information in Dutch about the petition can be found on NederlanderBlijven.com.