Cor-rupt was a long and narrow café with relatively little daylight and dark wooden panels on the wall. A kind of modern ‘brown café’. That didn’t really affect the conviviality but creating a different kind of atmosphere was difficult. Decorating for a birthday or a holiday required a lot of imagination and especially a lot of stuff otherwise it didn’t stand out.
And a lot of stuff meant a lot of work. Fortunately, there were plenty who felt partly responsible for the day to day activity of the pub; and often without asking, we got help. Christmas had even become a ritual. Together we decided when we were going to decorate and together the Christmas tree was selected. Klaas, Ronald and Pierre were regular helpers, the others varied each year.
Every Christmas there was an extensive discussion about the place for the tree (there was not a really good place anywhere) and about the decorations. Usually fuelled with the necessary drinks.
But at the end of the afternoon there was a beautiful tree, the walls were decorated with branches and at the top of the bar a large fake pine branch garland was hung. It was fake as we did not want any needles in our drinks but also needed for another reason. Decorating is fun but breaking down a lot less. That’s what our auxiliary forces thought, and so did we. The real branches and trees were neatly put outside after the celebration of ‘the arrival of the three kings’ on the sixth of January. That had to be done. However, the fake decoration could linger for a while. Many times we celebrated Cor’s birthday (July 20!) under that evergreen pine.
