A Christmassy Weekend

This past weekend in St Andrews was the Christmassy weekend. We had the Christmas Dinner and Cabaret in Hall and there was also the Christmas Ball. A weekend that had much fun and excitement contained within its thin walls. I say thin walls because I had an essay due at 12 noon on Monday that I pulled an all-nighter for on Thursday and ran on caffeine for three days, which is a lot since I rarely ever have coffee now-a-days, it makes me so hyper and I cannot get a restful sleep with it. It did however help me to spurn out words for my paper without falling asleep.

But, back to the Christmassy stuff. The Christmas Dinner was lovely. It was a formal sit down dinner in our usual dining room which was decorated for the purpose. There were three Christmas trees and a nativity scene around the room.  There were tablecloths on the tables and christmassy napkins and a cracker in front of each person's plate. We also had a high table that night. A high table is a tradition where students get invited to sit at the wardens' table for dinner and get served by the wardens. Also when they enter, everyone has to stand up and wait for them to process in and take their seats before sitting down. high table occurs about a couple times each semester. The Christmas Dinner high table was extra special since it was, well, Christmas Dinner. For regular high tables, people get selected randomly, but for the Christmas one, they were specially nominated as people who had done the most for Hall over the semester. One of my academic brothers was on high table.

We had a three course meal. The appetizer was spiced vegetables in a pastry cup, the main dish was chicken and stuffing wrapped in bacon and the dessert was a blueberry sponge cake like thing. It all tasted lovely and we also had bottles of red and white wine on the table. It was nice to see everyone in their formals and gowns as well. A pretty sea of red, very christmassy. 

After the dinner, we had the Cabaret. Each floor/section of hall put on an act, including the wardens who did "A Uni Hall Christmas Carol". It was wonderful to see the talent and creativity on show. Us Wardlaw girls did a dance to the song "Santa Baby". I also learned that the boys in Uni Hall can dance really well and they enjoy doing it!  After the Cabaret, quite a few people went to the Bop. I, against my good sense went as well. Owing to the fact that I had been running purely on caffeine, the remnants of which were slowly running out of my system, I almost fell asleep on the dance floor. 

Saturday was rest-and-regain-my-senses day. We had an amazing brunch that morning, the Christmas Brunch. It consisted of everything we get at breakfast over the course of the three week rotation, all served on one day. Amazing! I only got up for brunch and went back to sleep for most of the rest of that day. 
 Sunday was a nice day, albeit a full one. We had the Wardlaw Christmas party in the afternoon and exchanged gifts secret santa style. There were mince pies to eat and mulled wine to drink and we played charades afterwards.

Then it was time to get ready for the Ball. I joined three other Wardlaw girls for this process and got my hair done by another one. We took prom style pictures just before we left as well. An actual Ball, and my! was it amazing. I wore my emerald green ball gown to it. It took place on a farm about a five minute drive away from St Andrews, and they had buses taking us back and forth as well. The place is called Kinkell farm and the dance took place in this huge barn which was spectacularly decorated. there was mistletoe at every doorway holly around the pillars and upside down Christmas trees hanging from the ceiling. We got free gingerbread and a glass of champagne when we arrived. We spent the rest of the night dancing to the songs of the different bands that played. Lots of people lots of music lots of fun and dancing! My feet felt like they were on fire at the end of the night, but it was all so worth it. (I miss the shoe I lost in Edinburgh)



So all in all, I had a great weekend. I got my essay (a bit haphazardly) done on Monday, printed it off at hall 20 minutes before it was due and then ran all the way across town to turn it in. 

Now I'm just waiting for our holidays to begin.