Earlier in the year we were still hoping to visit South Africa for a blissful beach holiday in December, but traveling became increasingly difficult due to Covid restrictions. Therefore, in the weeks leading up to the holidays, we started making a list of things to do in Europe: Visit Christmas markets, drink gluwhein and chocomel at quint restaurants, do Christmas shopping, perhaps even go for a ski holiday in Austria or Germany. Or France or Switzerland!
All our plans evaporated overnight when the Corona cases increased rapidly and everything closed down: Schools, restaurants, Christmas markets, shops, ski slopes, borders. I'm thankful that we could still experience the magic of Sinterklaas in November and early December with pepernoten and sjokolade letters, Sinterklaas songs (yes, we all learnt and sang them!), traces of naughty Pieten in our house and at school, carrots for Ozosnel and drawings for Sinterklaas, cadeautjes, dress-up and a Pietengym, the Sinterklaasjoernaal, and bingo with Sinterklaas (online).
The highlight of December was a fantastic Christmas dinner at friends (while adhering to the strict Covid regulations) and night-time walks in town to see the Christmas lights and decorated trees. Other than that, we went for walks in the parks, arranged playdates, baked, played board games, and took our daily dose of Vitamin D.
Usually, the Dutch spend 70 million Euros on fireworks per year and New Years apparently sounds like a warzone. This year, even though fireworks were banned to reduce the casualties at hospitals, loud bangs still filled the air. We bought oliebollen with poedersuiker from food trucks which popped up all over town, read, turned the oliebollen into vetkoek, cycled, built puzzles, intrigued our Dutch neighbours with our oliebollen / vetkoek tales, and took our daily dose of Vitamin D.
The schools remained closed, home-schooling (aka watching a lot of tv) commenced, and to our dismay the gebakkramen and their olienbollen disappeared! We amused our Dutch neighbours with tales of eating oliebollen / vetkoek all year round in South Africa, and we took our daily dose of Vitamin D.
And then, just as we ran out of exciting Corona-proof winters activities... it snowed! With each of the three glorious snowfalls in January, children and grownups alike enjoyed snowball fights and made sneeuwpoppen in the park. The snow usually only remained for a few days, depending on the area, and it was just enough to enjoy it thoroughly.
However, the best was yet to come: Early in February the Netherlands experienced the coldest temperatures in nine years (at -14 C, we experienced the coldest temperatures ever) and a code red was announced throughout the country. We all huddled inside excitedly waiting for a majestic snowfall, but the frozen canals, dams and lakes were even more impressive! We watched in amazement as a dam in a nearby park slowly turned to ice with each passing day.
Then, one day, children started venturing out onto the ice! Soon, even grownups and pets were playing and skating on the frozen dam, with us watching in amazement from the side. This was very far removed from my youthful ice skating experiences at the Kolonade!
The following weekend, we felt adventurous and decided to take a road trip, which brought us to the snow-covered countryside of Nederweert. There we ran into the winter-version of a South African bring & braai: Families were showing up at a massive lake with chairs, drinks, and sleds in hand, while groups of young children were arriving via bicycle, their ice skates dangling from their handlebars. Everyone found a spot next to the frozen lake, with some even positioning their chairs on the lake. And then, fun was had by all as everyone camped out next to / on the lake and skated along.
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