Els van Steijn (70) from the Transvaalbuurt is done with it. She has taken down the lavish annual Christmas decorations in front of her house. The end is full for the Haarlem woman, after miscreants destroyed her fairytale creation.
When Els tells what happened on Wednesday evening, tears well up in her eyes again. “I’ve been doing this for I don’t know how long. We’ve lived here for fifty years, I’ve been decorating the house around the holidays for at least thirty years. The whole neighborhood enjoys it, children especially come here. Why would you destroy that?”
A neighbor passes by walking her dog. “Are you going to take everything away now, Els?” Yes, is the answer, “I’m quitting.” Her husband is ill and needs her care. She can’t handle any extra stress now. So she’s breaking things off now, no matter how sad she thinks that is.
She made the decision on Thursday morning, after realizing what had happened. She had cried a lot in between. “Maybe it was a strong gust of wind,” her husband tried. But Els realized that the broken lights and the broken merry-go-round were not nature’s fault.
Guys on fat bikes
Coincidentally, Els learned a little more about the act of aggression on Friday morning, when she was putting away the last decorations. “Ten minutes ago a local resident came to me. The mirror of her car was destroyed. She looked back at camera images and saw that boys on fat bikes had done it. I suspect it was those boys.”
In all likelihood they struck a few hours before midnight on Wednesday. “My husband has to rest a lot, so we go to bed around half past eight. We sleep behind and haven’t heard anything. I only saw it the next morning.”
What’s even more unfortunate is that a week earlier, Els had been working until midnight to prepare the Christmas decorations. “That was after we celebrated Sinterklaas on Friday evening. It is so nice for the children when they see the Christmas decorations the next morning.”
Halloween
The children in Reitzstraat now have to miss that joy. Not only around Christmas and Sinterklaas, but also at Halloween. “We had 200 children at the door here last month,” says Els. “I raced to Action to get extra candy.”
A permanent part of the decorations was a gigantic doll, which was dressed as Sinterklaas or Santa Claus. It was stolen before. This week’s destruction was the final straw for Els. “I can only hope that the perpetrators see the photos and feel remorse.”