I grew up skating on the pond in my folk's backyard. We would skate or play hockey every day. It would be safely frozen solid by usually Dec 15th or so, and we could continue to skate all through January. 80% of the time it was still safe through the February school vacation. Dad & the neighbor on the other side of the pond hung flood lights from several trees on both sides so we could even skate at night. We had 2 giant rinks going non-stop filled with neighborhood kids.
But in the last 20 years, it hasn't frozen like that. There is sometimes open water, as this year, in December & January. By February it is ice free. My nieces have never been able to skate on it, it just has never frozen with thick enough ice to be safe. If you hadn't grow up on their street back then, you'd never know what you were missing.
Pond skating is so much nicer than on an artificial rink.
Hope yours will freeze up this winter.