One waits until Sinterklaas is out of the country. The other is now already decorating it: the Christmas tree. Teunis Otten (85) from Hollandscheveld arrives early and does things a little differently. He doesn’t have one tree, he has a whole forest. A Christmas tree forest. “Just like being in nature.”
Half of his living room has been sacrificed for the forest. There are three Christmas trees with leaves, branches and some other decorations. No balls! Otten doesn’t like that, all that kitschy stuff. No, his Christmas tree forest is decorated as naturally as possible. Although they are artificial trees. “I don’t want to take trees from the forest or from the grower,” says Otten. “I can use those artificial trees every year. And that costs the environment nothing at all. Let everything that grows outside grow happily.”
Behind the woods he has a large box that is connected to his laptop. He plays bird sounds on it. Preferably the nightingale, his favorite bird. Hollandschevelder can fall asleep to the chirping sound of the animal. He does that regularly. In the evening, when it is dark.
Otten is a nature lover par excellence. He used to live, as he says, with nature. “When we were young we would sit here in the woods and we would hear them singing at night,” he recalls. “And when you used to get out of dating, you always came home a little later and this bird would be whistling on Kerklaan. Then I would get off my bike and I would enjoy that.” His Christmas tree forest reminds him of the good old days.