* we are spending christmas in amsterdam this year and i am just beside myself. in anticipation i am reposting stories about some of my favorite dutchie things. jip and janneke are two adorable little friends beloved in the netherlands… x0x

jip and janneke are two little dutch kids who met when they saw each other through a hole in the hedge that separated their houses. in the celebrated story by annie m.g. schmidt, jip was peeking through…

and what did he see? a little nose. and a little mouth. and two blue eyes. it was a girl. a little girl who was exactly the same size as jip.

“who are you?” jip asked.

“janneke,” the girl answered. “i live here.”

“you didn’t live here yesterday,” said jip.

“i live here today,” said janneke. “are you coming to play?”

when we were building our house, we had a big discussion with the architect and the builder about the height of the fencing for the back yard. on the north side, there was an existing six foot fence belonging to our neighbor. it was clear that the fence along the back should also be six feet because there is an alley behind it that the garbage truck goes down. we debated about how high the fence should be between our house and our neighbors to the south. 

i like consistency. i like all the taps in a house to be from the same family. i like the hardware to match throughout. it feels jangly to me when interiors are painted lots of colors and i don’t like accent walls. it seemed outrageous to me to have two sides of the backyard enclosed with a six foot fence and one side with a three foot fence. i was already distressed about the fact that our northern neighbor’s existing fence would be different than the one we were putting up (i solved this by planting a row of tall lilac bushes along the north side.)

my debate team accused me of being unfriendly AND unneighborly. it’s true, i am a bit reserved. despite being from california, i don’t say “hello” to people i don’t know… unless they are cute children and they are smiling first. i don’t talk to the person in the seat next to me on an airplane. i don’t chat with the cashier at the market about what i am doing the rest of the day. i am always startled when i am walk/hiking and people speak to me for no reason. i understand that that is part of walk/hiking culture, but i can’t seem to get the hang of it. so in addition to being concerned about having fencing of various heights, i was worried about having to talk to my neighbors to the south who i didn’t really know. i was having enough trouble adjusting to the idea of living in a house, where all kinds of people just walk up to your door, instead of an apartment with a nice, safe buzzer. i hadn’t lived in a house since i left for college. i may watch too much law and order, but i am not going to open my front door just because you are standing out there with a clip board. however, since i am not super into nature, i didn’t anticipate going in the back yard too often. i did have two young children though and i imagined having to watch them if they wanted some fresh air.

in the end, i was shamed/reassured into the low fence, we moved into the house and i kept my fingers crossed that i would like my southern neighbors. it turned out my children liked the nature more than i do and as soon as i let my daughter into the yard she toddled her way over to the three foot fence and started peering through the slats. on the other side was a little nose, a little mouth and two blue eyes. it was a little boy named grayson who was exactly the same size as lu. they have been great buddies ever since and praise jesus, i adore his mama too.

text: annie m.g. schmidt

illustrations: fiep westendorp

photos: grace morgan

to read about more dutch favorites click here or here or here