King Willem-Alexander will give his annual Christmas speech

Dutch King Willem-Alexander will give his annual Christmas speech from his residential palace Huis ten Bosch on Sunday, Christmas Day. In the speech, which was recorded on Thursday, the king traditionally looks back on the past year and ahead to the new year.

This year's speech was recorded in the DNA Salon at Huis ten Bosch Palace. The king's year-end speech can be seen on Christmas Day at 1 p.m. on NPO 1, RTL4 and SBS6 and can be listened to on NPO Radio 1.On NPO 2, the speech can be seen with a sign language interpreter.

Last year, about 1.6 million people watched the king’s Christmas speech. That was slightly less than a year earlier, when 2.2 million people tuned in.

In his speech in 2021, King Willem-Alexander referred to the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, he said that Christmas that year is "forced to be so much more austere and quieter than we all hoped". The Dutch king also recalled a visit to a hospital where he spoke to a nurse about the impact of the pandemic. "A show of strength that day for all the wonderful doctors, nurses and health care workers who work tirelessly to keep us healthy," he emphasized.

The king also mentioned other encounters he has had with "different" people over the past year. "Each of us has our own story. After all, we are very different people. We look at life in very different ways," he said. "We are free to think and believe what we want. We have the freedom to form our own worldview and put it into words. Thank goodness for that!"