Christmas Christmas Christmas!

i made mom's classic gingerbread last night for a little dinner party at our place. oooh i bit in and felt like i was sitting in villa park or sundance. it was amazing.

it snowed! :) but didn't stick. :(

this is beautiful and makes me think of les and steph.

i have 14,000 out of 100,000 words written of my phd thesis. HA.

we leave for Germany a week from today. hurrah!

and! look what delights we got in the mail today! grammy sent toni and me these amazing little Christmas tree ornaments with pictures from our wedding, our very first ornaments! i'm totally in love.



Merry Christmas!

o magnum mysterium

i told you the last week of term was magical, and it truly was. it started out with seeing toni sing in a performance of mozart's requiem in the sheldonian theatre. here's a blurry picture of the choir and orchestra:



here's a less blurry one of the gorgeous 300+ year old theatre...



you know those moments when you sit back and realise - oh heavens i'm so happy i am married to this person? that gosh darn it they are so perfect for you? that was one of those nights. the whole thing was gorgeous.

then the last evening of term we headed to exeter college chapel for a "9 Lessons and 9 Carols" service. oh heavens! it was perhaps the most beautiful Christmas event i've ever been to. nine passages were read from the Bible progressing from the fall, to the announcement of a Redeemer, to the miraculous birth itself. interspersed were old english carols we all sang together, but then even better, stunning pieces sung by the choir. i was more moved than i can say by the spirit of it all. the setting (where we had our own lovely ceremony just months before :), the beauty of the old carols' words, the angelic voices, all centering on the story of the birth of Christ.

we went with our intellectual-doppelganger couple from sweden, anna and magnus - she just finished a masters in public health looking at maternal health in ethiopia (!) and he's just started a phd in politics with toni's same supervisor, AND they just got married this year. they're utterly lovely and we're so happy to have met them. after the service we had some minced pies then went over to the stunning old dining hall at exeter for a proper Christmas feast, paper crowns and carols and all! here's toni and magnus looking suave.




and toni and me. yay.




luckily enough the choir sang one of my all-time favorite pieces of music, lauridsen's "o magnum mysterium." here's a video i found of the piece sung at king's college chapel, cambridge - a bit of a grander scale, but it reminds me so much of that night we had at exeter... how can you listen to this and not feel the spirit and beauty of this Christmas season? truly, what a great mystery and gift it all is!



loves and Christmas well-wishes!!
jooj.

week 8, or end of term, or advent begins!

this week i was met with two pieces of truly sobering news from loved ones, and it's hard to take in. it makes toni and i look around at our little life here and remember again, it is all a miracle. our lives are miraculous, no?

in honor of that miracle, and to properly process it all - the end of the week, the term, the year! - we took a long long country walk on the environs of oxford this morning, our first day of term break/holiday. naturally, it was gorgeous. perfect.





seriously beautiful, right? sigh.

also. i really wanted to go off and forage for some Christmas ornaments. there are so many colorful winter berries around england that i wanted to make into a wreath for our red door:



:)

all things considered, this past week was actually one of my favorites in this ancient little town of Oxford - England does the Christmas season right, i tell you. will share more in the coming days. in the meantime toni and i are off to Cambridge for a conference on reproductive health. (ok ok I'M going to the conference and toni is nice enough to come along so we can stroll through more beautiful-ness together :)

much love to you all, and hurrah for the start of the most glorious season of the year!
jooj.