Happy "Oxmas," Everyone!

It's official: I've completed my first term at Oxford University! And it's amazing how quickly the past eight weeks have gone by. I celebrated by sleeping in until 11:00am and taking two naps yesterday. In the evening, I had dinner with some friends and watched a movie (A Beautiful Mind). It was a really relaxing way to celebrate the end of term.

A while back, Carl, Patrick and I ventured to the top of St. Mary's Church tower to see the Oxford skyline and make a video to share with our friends back at William Jewell College. You see, every year Jewell has a holiday tradition called "Hanging of the Green," in which wreaths are hung up around the chapel, and Santa generally makes and appearance, and they play greetings from all of the students studying abroad. It's been sad not to be on campus to be part of all of the holiday traditions at Jewell this season, but still neat to participate by sending in our greeting from Oxford!
We decided to film our holiday greeting from the top of St. Mary's Church tower, which is pretty much near the heart of Oxford.

I forgot to take a photo of the outside of the church, so here's one I stole from wikipedia. (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:University_Church_of_St.Mary_the_Virgin,_Oxford_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1329200.jpg)

Here are the photo's that we took from around the top of the church tower, looking out around Oxford.

And here's our video:

In America, it often seems to me that the corporate world starts celebrating Christmas much too early. In Oxford, however, it's even earlier! Because the majority of students leave right after term ends (Dec. 2nd this year), perhaps, the city starts to celebrate Christmas as early as November. 

Friday night the city had a big Christmas festival, in which all of the Christmas lights lining the streets were illuminated for the season. There was a "twelve days of Christmas" parade, carnival rides and stalls, and lots of Christmas lights. Even though I was absolutely exhausted from a week of late night essay writing and studying for my Japanese exam, I still decided to attend with some friends for awhile, and I'm glad that I did. It was really neat to see so much festive commotion in the city center. Patrick, Travis, and I even got caught in the center of the children's parade, which was pretty humorous. People were clapping for us and taking photos! I know what to do the next time I need an ego booster! 

I tried to take a few photos of the festivities. The quality isn't great, but here they are:

Tonight, Patrick and I went to an Advent carol service at the University Church, held in conjunction with the German Lutheran church. It was a really lovely service, and we sang one of my favorite hymns, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Also, half of the scripture readings and hymns were in German, which was really neat. Afterwards, they served cider and treats. Unexpected treats are always a plus! We made frozen pizza for supper, and Patrick streamed an American football game onto the television in the common room of my dorm. All in all, it's been a wonderfully low-key weekend. However, I do already have reading lists and essays assignments for my tutorials for next term, so I'll probably break out the books again tomorrow. Of course, I really enjoy my studies, so it's easy to not think of the reading lists as "work."

Hope everyone else is also having a great beginning of the holiday season!

Thanks for reading!