After a long year of lockdowns and lay-offs, switching on the Christmas lights has brought some welcome colour and cheer for the Koetsier family of Croydon | Carolyn Webb | Christmas decorations
It hasn’t been the brightest year for the Koetsier family of Croydon, with long lay-offs from jobs due to lockdowns, having to study from home and one of them coming down with COVID-19.Bert, Amanda and Chantel Koetsier with their Christmas lights.The display is a tonic for children, and for adult visitors too, who giggle as they dance to Christmas pop songs under a fake-snow machine.
An ice-cream van is here three nights a week. And kids can lodge letters to Santa in a little post box. Chantel, a VCE student, and her brother Luke, 20, a university building design student, studied from home for long periods, and social events were cancelled.Mr Koetsier said the family had to draw on their savings. But they’re not complaining.
It’s the third year that the Koetsiers have staged the lights, which continue until Christmas night, when the family sing carols.“I love it. It’s my hobby,” he said. “I don’t play golf, so I do this. Seeing the looks on the kids’ faces, it’s phenomenal.”Mrs Koetsier said the mother of a teenager with autism wrote a letter saying the boy usually found it hard to endure public events, “and she said it was the best experience of his life”.
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