Our holiday season in Amstelveen was pretty subdued. The hard lockdown (everything closed except for grocery stores and pharmacies) didn't take effect until the day we left for Miami, but case numbers were rising and we had a single-minded focus- stay healthy to be able to make it to the US. We all had to have a negative test result taken within 24 hours of our flight, which meant that we declined all social engagements and extracurriculars, masked our kids at school (not required here), and held our breath until the day before our flight. It was a stressful time, to say the least. One door led to a Christmas spent with all of our family in sunny Florida. The other door led to a canceled trip and Christmas spent in lockdown. When our negative test results came in, the tears of relief fell hard and fast.
We were home until December 19th, one of our longest holidays seasons here, so I decked all of the halls to make the dark time as cheery as possible. We didn't even put up a tree last year since I flew home with the kids on December 6th after Pete recovered from COVID! We went back to our garden center to see the Christmas displays and choose a tree. Bonus at the end was enjoying our first oliebollen of the season!
Last Christmas I brought home our Christmas ornaments that had been in storage at Pete's parents' house for the last 7 years. So this was the first year that ALL of our ornaments made it on the tree. I collect a Christmas ornament for every trip we've taken so the tree was really full and I loved it!
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| Photo was taken before we straightened it with some twine :)
I bought pine branches at the garden center to try my hand at making a wreath (trying to remember how I'd done it at a class 2 years ago).
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Lots of home time meant Christmas crafts galore!
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| And eerie selfies |
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| And winter walks |
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| And making and stress-eating these amazing zebra shortbread cookies. |
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| All dressed up for her winter party at school |
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Writing thank you notes for the hard-working teachers. |
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| Opening gifts to one another to save space in our luggage. |
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