Sometimes you experience something that can only be described as gezellig. It’s nearly the same as cosy but cosy refers more to a place than to a time. Like a cosy house, a cosy room. But you would not say thank you for giving me cosiness. In Dutch you can do that and it’s not odd at all.
Sweets and chocolate are some ingredients of Sinterklaas…
Yesterday we celebrated Sinterklaas – Wim, me and Max who did his best to make it less gezellig by trying to electrocute himself, jump on the chandelier and eat spiders…
Lights in the garden
We had decided to skip the superfluous presents and only ordered a few things we really wanted to have. We hardly broke the bank. So what made it so gezellig?
Well it was dark outside and we had hung up lights in the ivy arch in the garden. That added to the gezelligheid. We can’t do Christmas trees because of Max. A workmate says she trains her kitten not to go in the Christmas tree by throwing him into the tree as soon as it arrives in the house. That would not work for Max. He would find that the greatest game on earth, and probably enjoy it even more once the tree was decorated.
We had ‘gourmet’ for dinner, very traditional for Sinterklaas. If someone invites you round for a gourmet dinner in the Netherlands, it does not mean a fancy meal. On the contrary, it can be quite messy. You use a table grill with little pans and wooden spoons for veggies and sauces, and grill tiny pieces of meat – mini steaks mini sausages, mini burgers… You get the picture, all very gezellig.
Sinterklaas poems
But that’s not all, Wim had written a few Sinterklaas poems for me – they rhyme, talk about your weaker points and describe why they gifted you a particular gift. I will get him back in a few weeks. We drank a few glasses of wine and whiskey, enjoyed some good TV for a change, and after Max grew tired of all his murderous and suicidious attempts, he fell asleep. With a sleeping Max it became completely gezellig!
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