The Fort and the Snow Princess

No, I'm not the Snow Princess, nor the Ice Princess, thank you very much. That's not even funny, those of you who were thinking it...and I know who you are. Actually, one night after a particularly snowy day, our next door neighbor got out his snowblower and cleared the circle in the roundabout for the kids. He then circled around and created a big pile of snow that he explained would become a fort for the kids. Jon had a lot of snow forts as a kid that he had built with his brother and his friends from the neighborhood, so we expected to see a bunch of kids shaping and construction their play area. Instead, all the kids were inside and the neighbor was out there alone, diligently piling blown snow onto itself until it reached over his head by at least a foot. I stopped watching when it was just too cold to watch this guy anymore, and we went back inside. After dinner, someone remembered the fort and we looked out onto the circle. The neighbor was done with the fort and had moved on to the stone table, where he was building an enormous snow person with some kids and other adults helping him. The fort, which was more like a hotel, had a curtained window that glowed from the candlelight within. Curtains? Candlelight? What kind of fort is this guy making, and for what, exactly?! Turns out the curtain was made from cardboard, but the votive candles were the real thing and the kids were playing and lighting new votives as the others wore down. This would never happen in America. The neighbors finished the snow person, whom they dubbed "The Princess" in English, and therefore theoretically in our honor, and I couldn't believe what a magical place we were in.