Christmas Formals

Cambridge got into the Christmas spirit during its last week, even though term ended Dec. 4 (yeah. ridiculous.) ... so, formals left and right with holiday themes.

= GLORIOUS


Besides our very own Christmas bash, King's and iCUSU (International Cambridge University Student Union) had Christmas formals during the last week of term.

12/1/09 - iCUSU Christmas Formal at Churchill College


[King's contingency]


[Churchill hall]


[apple tart dessert]


[Alexa, me, Elian]


[Ola, Oscar, Victoria]


12/2/09 - King's College Disney-Themed SUPERFORMAL


[pre-formal, milling around in bar, ready to invade hall]


[extravagant King's hall decorated for Christmas]


[place settings, complete with Disney menu, cracker/party favor, mistletoe, and other holiday decorations]


[ladies in costume]


[meatiest meat dinner ever.]


[King's Choir boys perform Christmas carols during formal]


[... then Santa Claus came and visited each table with gifts!]


[happy children with gifts from Santa]


[King's bar, post-formal festivities]


[Halliki, me, Siyao, Nadia]


[Shayan and a very Nina-looking Santa bust out karaoke moves]


[post Christmas Superformal - King's bar - standard.]


Epic epic epic formal. Amazing job done by Sho and ents staff!

Happy Holidays [Christmas Party 2009]

What with Christmas being 1 month away, and term being 1 week from over, a CHRISTMAS BASH was in order.

Yes, I know it was almost a month early.
Yes, I know it was the Friday night sandwiched between Thanksgiving and our CME Thanksgiving potluck.
Yes, I know we went all out with Christmas music, tinsel, holiday finger paintings, and gold/green/red/silver ribbons.


And YES, it was AMAZING.

[11/27/09]

Food:
- Mince pies
- Mulled wine
- German stollen (authentic!)
- English "Christmas cake"
- Cadbury's chocolate fingers
- Shortbread cookies
- Bailey's/hot chocolate/marshmallows
- miscellaneous snackfood

Music:
- Walking in a Winter Wonderland
- Sleigh Ride
- Let it Snow
- the entirety of Andy Williams' Christmas collection
- all of Josh Groban's Noel
- etc.

Artwork (finger paintings courtesy of Nina, Alexa, and Ellie):
- Santa going down chimney
- reindeer with boobs (refer to fig. 2)
- assorted presents
- gold star
- Christmas tree
- questionable-shape-turned-stocking
- gold/red/green/silver ribbons
- red/green/silver tinsel



[fig. 1 Alexa, Ellie, Nina - decorating for CHRISTMAS BASH]


[fig. 2 Reindeer With Boobs, painting credit: Alexa]


[fig. 3 Holiday festivities in swing]


[fig. 4 Christmas food]


[fig. 5 holidayyys]


[fig. 6 chicas]


[fig. 7 guys singing OPERA?!]


[fig. 8 christmas bash]


[fig. 9 people who love Christmas ... and food]


[fig. 10 aftermath/cleaned up]



HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Holiday SPIRIT

Alexa, Michaela, and I, being Americans, have been raised in the overly-commercialized, Hallmark-monopolized, decorations-ridden, color-explosion world of HOLIDAY SPIRIT ... and WE LOVE IT.

So, when we come to Europe, we DO NOT let the lackluster "yay .. er .. Christmas .." (spoken in ~5dB) stop us from our (somewhat premature) festivities.


We could not WAIT to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we got a little headstart mid-November.
(oh, and Halloween too.)


PIES. Pies are essential. We have ovens. Why not make pies? They're easier than cooking an entire turkey. Plus, we'd been severely craving pumpkin pies since Halloween. So ... we embarked on our cooking adventure, the entirety of which ended up being a 4-hour endeavor. YESS.


[all the tasty spices ... smell the HOLIDAY SPIRIT!]


[making pumpkin pies ... from scratch]


[pumpkin pies, fresh out of the oven]


[pies, milk, whipped cream, roasted pumpkin seeds ... check]


[DELICIOUSNESS]


[festive pies with the Americans]


[PIE TIME]



[Market Square Cambridge city Christmas lights "Big Turn On"]


[11/15 lighting of Christmas lights in Market Square :D]


[Market Square with a ... sheet? of lights]


See, even people in overly-holiday-eager America would say 11/15 was a bit too early to light up the town with Christmas lights ... I say it's never too early.

In my book, the existence of each year is simply 10 months of waiting for October to roll around so we can start GETTING IN THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT AGAIN!!!