This weekend was filled with Christmas cheer and traditions. On Friday, I had the opportunity to enjoy Christmas a cappella vocal music spanning several centuries as I listened to the Virginia Chorale's yearly Christmas concert, and on Sunday I enjoyed the York River Symphony Orchestra's concert filled with wonderful holiday music. I have always loved Christmas music, so I had really been looking forward to these concerts.
On Saturday night, I went with Vince to one of the most beloved of William and Mary traditions: the Yule Log Ceremony. The ceremony has its roots in ancient yule log traditions, and at William and Mary, the students are all given holly twigs when they arrive at the ceremony to toss into the great blaze kindled with the yule logs in the Great Hall in the Wren Building at the end of the ceremony, which symbolizes tossing away all the past year's worries and hardships. (Here are some links to news stories about the ceremony in past years...)
The Yule Log Ceremony took place in the courtyard of the Wren Building, the night illuminated by wood fires burning in iron braziers. During the ceremony, the Vice President of Student Affairs, Sam Sadler, read "'Twas the Night Before Finals", the W&M Choir and the Gentlemen of the College sang, readings about the meanings and significance of the holiday season from many of the religious and cultural organizations on the campus, and finally, the College President, Gene Nichol, read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" dressed as Santa Claus.
The first part of the ceremony completed, the Yule Logs were passed through the crowds of students, so the students could brush their holly against the logs. Unfortunately, the logs didn't go through most of the crowd. In fact, Vince and I never even saw either of them until they were carried in the doors to the Great Hall! Then came the long wait as all of us waited in line for our chance to get into the Great Hall to toss our holly sprig into the fire. Disappointingly enough, some of the other students were rather rude about it (I got elbowed a couple of times by people entirely too greedy about getting their good luck), but Vince and I had a good time laughing about stuff as we slowly made our way to the Hall.
After waiting in line an hour, we finally made it to the Great Hall, greeted by the dulcet strains of "Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming" sung by the Gentlemen of the College. Under the watchful eye of Queen Anne's coronation portrait, I tossed the holly that carried all the stresses and cares of the past year into the blazing yule log fire, and watched as they were quickly reduced to glowing embers that slipped through the grate and were gone. It was a very satisfying feeling. May all worries and stress pass away so quickly!
After Vince and I had tossed our sprigs of holly and watched the smoke of the past year's worries curl up the chimney as countless students have done through the past century, we left the Wren building and headed to the physics building, where a bunch of our friends and classmates were gathered to play Halo2 and hang out. There were lots of people there when we arrived, and more of our friends made appearances as the news of the gathering spread by word-of-mouth (or ringing victory cries, since those were pretty loud). Sadly, I couldn't stay for as long as I would have liked to, since I needed to clean up my little cottage because Jason will be arriving here in Virginia on the 15th and the Yule Log Ceremony had taken longer than I had expected, but I wanted to spend some quality time chatting with and heckling my friends as they attempted to fight their way to victory in a virtual world. Josh, Keoki, Bryan, and Mike were really dominating the field of honor while I was there. :) We had a grand time, and we also made some plans to have some fun and games when Jason arrives, so I'll get to play more then.
Spending joyful time hanging out with dear friends while we all gleefully try to snuff each other out in Halo2... Isn't hanging out with friends what holidays are all about? :D
[Credits: Holly pictures from botanical.com and BBC gardening. The ones of the statue of Lord Botetourt and the Wren Building are my own. ]
