If you are feeling more like Scrooge than Santa, we’ve found plenty of jolly things to do if you need to escape, and most are not Christmas-inspired. Happy holidays!

Meet Old Nick at the Voorlinden

The Voorlinden Museum in Wassenaar is hosting a solo exhibition of works by Australian all-round artist Nick Cave. Apart from being a musician, writer, actor and agony uncle, Cave also designs and paints pottery. The Devil: a life is a series of Staffordshire-inspired figures depicting events from the  life of the devil, from a young aspiring devil to the dying older version, in an imitation of Christ’s stages of the cross.

The devil is shorthand for our and (old) Nick’s foibles and illustrates Cave’s fascination with religion. The glossy, colourful figures are also devilishly attractive and funny and the Voorlinden bought all 17 of them. From December 14. Website

Watch drag trump bigotry

The Queen’s English Theatre Company is going all out with La Cage aux Folles, in which a rightwing anti-gay politician – played by well-known musical star Barrie Stevens – meets and proves no match for the formidable drag queen partner of his future son-in-law’s dad. Pandemonium ensues, true love and Le Cage triumph. Long may it last. December 11-15 Website

Come and adore the best nativity scene

Ok, there is a bit of Christmas cheer in this otherwise unfestive version of Great Things but it’s a good one. The Museum Catharijneconvent has unpacked The Netherlands’ most beautiful nativity scene, which is made up of 600 gorgeous 18th century figures made in Naples.

The characters are all milling around the streets of Utrecht, complete with the Dom tower and other landmark buildings, shopping at the street market, making music and generally going about their business. Oh yes, and some of them are adoring the newborn king. From December 13. Website

Guess who the Dickens they all are

Deventer is standing in for Dickens’s (mostly) London haunts again but with better plumbing. The streets will be teeming with characters from the great man’s 15 novels, from Little Nell and Agnes to Quilp and Bill Sikes (and his dog). Dickens created around 1,000 characters so it will be busy. December 14 and 15. Website

Find out who is playing who

The Orange Theatre in Amsterdam presents Venus in Fur, by David Ives, who based his comedy about domination and submission on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s book of the same name. In this version an aspiring actress and a director/playwright gradually become the protagonists in his play. December 12, 13 and 14. Website

Drop in at the Brueghels

There is still time to visit the family reunion of the Brueghels at the Noord-Brabants Museum in Den Bosch. The exhibition unites five generations of painting Brueghels,of whom Pieter Brueghel the Elder and his densely populated Peasant Wedding (1567) is probably best known.

Some of the women and men marrying into the family business were painters as well and the exhibition, comprised of over 100 works, is organised not on differences in style but on such modern themes as gender, colonialism and climate. Brueghel, the family reunion is on until January 7. Website

Step into the Stedelijk’s new sculpture hall

It’s called the beeldentuin (sculpture garden) but it’s not because it is in the covered space where the garden used to be. The Don Quixote Sculpture Hall at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, named after the foundation which financially supported it, is a public space and therefore free. It is home to sculptures by Henry Moore, Nicky de Saint Phalle, Damien Hirst, Karel Appel, Alexander Calder and Willem de Kooning, for now that is, because works will come and go.

Brave the dark December nights with Staatsbosbeheer

Why not sign up for a bracing night walk with the boswachters of Staatsbosbeheer? There’s a full moon walk in Almeerderhout, an only slightly Christmassy bring-your-own-lantern walk in Horsterwold and a tawny owl spotting expedition in the Lage Vuursche, to pick just a few out of many.

Get your skates on

Now is the time to drag your offspring away from his or her tablet and plonk them onto the ice to learn the art of skating. The rink on Amsterdam’s Museumplein offers parents plenty of scope to nip off for a quick one but if you take your skating more seriously there are plenty of other options, for instance in Haarlem, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht.

See Rembrandt’s missing bits

Rembrandt’s Night Watch is being restored and visitors are invited to make restorers nervous by eyeing their every move. Operation Night Watch takes place in a knife and loony-proof glass chamber where restorers are currently removing the old layers of varnish from the museum’s most famous painting.

The missing bits of the Night Watch, cut off when it wouldn’t fit its designated place on the wall of the palace on Dam square in 1715, have been recreated using artificial intelligence but will not be part of the final restoration. Ongoing. Website

Go Underground in Amsterdam

You can still see the tail end of the Eye film museum’s programme of American avant garde films from the Sixties, which includes films by Jonas Mekas, Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage, as well as work made by artists Bruce Conner, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono and Andy Warhol.

Experimental, challenging (Warhol’s eight hours of Empire) and a poke in the eye for Hollywood, these films are a useful reminder of what the 1960s did for us. Underground is on until January 5. Website