Why do Dutch households hang a calendar on their bathroom wall?
In the bathroom of a Dutch home, a single calendar hangs on a long, narrow white wall. Not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not in a bedroom, but in the bathroom. Its name is verjaardagskalender, a birthday calendar.
From January 1 to December 31, 365 small squares fill a single page. Each one is packed with the birthdays of family members, relatives, friends, and colleagues. With no year printed on it, there is no need to buy a new one every New Year. Once a name is written down, it stays in the same square every year.
Why the bathroom? The answer is simple: because it is a place people enter at least once a day, and where the eye naturally pauses. In Dutch society, forgetting someone's birthday is considered a small but unmistakable lapse in courtesy. So on one wall of the most private room, the year’s names hang together.
When a bicycle stops in front of someone's door one morning, it may be because a square seen in the bathroom the day before was today's.