Amsterdam at Christmas travel advice

For Amsterdam - the Anne Frank House is an absolute must. It's one of the best things I have seen in all of Europe. Buy your tickets NOW online. IF not, they will sell out. Then, pick up the English free brochure when you get there - it does a GREAT job at describing each room you walk thru. It had such an impact on me.

We also did the Van Gogh Museum and a Cheese/Wine tasting at one of the cheese shops.

A few days in Belgium wouldn't be a bad idea. There are strong feelings about which city is best for accommodation: Brugge or Gent. Personally I prefer Gent for being more lively and more central, with excellent train connections to Brugge, Brussel and Antwerpen.
There is no reason for changing accommodation in the Netherlands, everything being to close to each other. Assuming your return flight is also from Amsterdam, you could have your second stay in Leiden or Utrecht, both historical university cities, and with frequent and quick train connections to Schiphol airport.

all sounds like good ideas just to be sure you book train tickets as early as you can to save money. hotel will be also hard to find and very expensive book early. It's going to be cold and wet, stay warm!

Thank you so much for the suggestions and advice! We will stay in Amsterdam and then take the train to Bruges where we will stay a couple days before heading to either Ghent or Brussels for a night. Because our flight leaves in the morning, we will spend our last night near the airport in Amsterdam.
A few questions if anyone can advise....

Should we stay the night in Ghent or Brussels?
Will it be easy to find places to eat on New Years' Eve in Bruges? (We discovered in London for example that not many places were open Christmas Day)
I teach (and love history/politics) and read about a museum, In Flanders Fields, that got great reviews. Has anyone visited it? Any other history related suggestions are greatly appreciated as well!

Thank you for all suggestions and advice!
jobi

We went to the Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. Ypres is an easy drive from Brussels and is well worth the trip-I had never really paid much attention to WWI before. Later on the same trip, we were in the graveyard of a church in a village in England and saw several graves of soldiers who died at Ypres. Those two experiences really gave me more understanding of what a Great War it was in Europe.

[just to be sure you book train tickets as early as you can to save money]

That is only necessary for the Thalys train between Amsterdam and Brussels. Dutch and Belgian trains have fixed fares. A ticket bought in advance is the same price as a ticket bought on day of travel.