Kathleen Aerts and her husband Steven have been celebrating Christmas in the sun for eleven years. “A white Christmas is nice, but when did it snow again on Christmas Eve in Belgium?”
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Celebrating Christmas at thirty degrees? It is possible in South Africa, as Kathleen Aerts shows in a special broadcast of her reality soap Villa South Africa. For the occasion, it will not be broadcast on VTM 2, but on big brother VTM.
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Desmytere Road
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“Christmas is over, now we can look forward to the next,” says Kathleen Aerts when we get her on the phone. But before the starting signal for 2022 is given, VTM Christmas under the equator from. During the shooting of that special episode of the reality soap Villa South Africa, in which Aerts and her husband Steven are followed in the operation of their travel agency StievieWonderTours and their guesthouse, Aerts celebrated her eleventh Christmas in her hometown of Paarl.
“We came here for the winter before we actually moved here. A white Christmas is nice, but when did it snow again on Christmas Eve in Belgium? Then I prefer the heat. Because the seasons are opposite here, we usually celebrate Christmas at 30 degrees. And preferably in a bikini.” (laughs)
As if thirty degrees didn’t sound exotic enough, Aerts and co. a little extra warmth on top of that. After all, in Cape Town, Christmas is traditionally celebrated around the ‘braai’ – the barbecue. “We make our charcoal ourselves, but that does mean that it braai burns all afternoon.”
Too far for St
No turkey on the menu at the Aerts house, but ostrich fillet. “For Steven and my sons Jay and Lewis anyway”, it sounds. “I am not a meat eater, so I also pass on other African specialties such as springbok. I stick to a vegan burger.”
A recognizable element: the Christmas tree. “We even have two: one inside and one on the terrace. They have been here since early October. The Christmas season starts very early here, because Sinterklaas is not celebrated here. Africa is a bit far for Sinterklaas, isn’t it.”
And yes, in Paarl you can’t escape the most flattened Christmas hit ever. “You can’t walk into a shopping center without hearing Mariah Carey. Really, I have All I want for Christmas is you heard it five hundred times without ever putting it on myself. Recently I saw on news sites that Carey earns 445,000 euros annually. I think half of that amount comes from South Africa. I’m lucky that I think it’s a great song.” (laughs)
‘Villa South Africa: Christmas below the equator’, VTM, 8.35 pm.
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