At Christmastime, Oxford is beautiful. There are lights everywhere, it’s atmospheric, and people are wrapped up in scarves like they’re about to walk onto the set of a festive film. The other night, I cycled home along Broad Street past green triangles of various sizes, which have now been assembled into a Christmas tree. It’s nostalgic. And there’s plenty of mulled wine.
But Oxford, in December, is also cold, and has been fairly wet of late. The phrases, ‘I’m so tired’ and ‘I’m so ill’ are being thrown around with increasing fervour, and in many cases have been replaced simply by a yawn or a loud cough. We are reaching the end of Michaelmas, which promises the joys of ‘Oxmas’ but also the threat of impending deadlines. The festive fun is all well and good until you have a 5,000 word essay draft due in three days (ahem).
At this point, it’s easy to become triggered by the small, inconvenient aspects of being a student. Like how your building is never quite warm enough. Or how every time someone walks through your hallway the automatic lights turn on. Or the fact that you share a wall with the kitchen and your flatmates decide to cook at ungodly hours and bang all the cupboard drawers. Very loudly.
Having well and truly settled into the rhythms of term, people are starting to feel slightly weary, and I’m getting the gist that home comforts are what we crave. I thought, accordingly, that this week’s ‘second draft’ reflection should really be to make things as homely as possible.
For me, this mainly comes down to warmth and hot beverages. Some maxims I live by include: If in doubt, drink tea. It is a good idea to have at least three varieties of tea bag in your cupboard at any one time. Investing in good mugs is very important; there is nothing worse, after a long day, than sipping out of a receptacle that is barely bigger than a thimble. Learn which cafés sell the best coffee. Learn which cafés sell the strongest coffee. Find the libraries that have heated blankets (this information I am selfishly gatekeeping, sorry). Drink the mulled wine.
For a bit of hard-hitting investigative journalism, I consulted my trusty group chat to see what everyone else does in their plight to feel homely. Responses included things like listening to music, bringing books from home, and taking time to go for a solitary walk. (I fear that others may not have quite the same proclivity for tea as I do).
The intention to make things feel like home, however, is wonderful but not always fully achieved. A few Sundays ago, some friends and I decided to watch a film in the common room, hoping it would provide a nice break from essay thoughts. We happened across a DVD of Notting Hill, which was all well and good until we realised that it was only available with Norwegian subtitles. I must stress that this was not an issue for me and that I am observing rather than complaining. As it so happens, I was practically raised on Richard Curtis’ oeuvre and have seen Notting Hill more times than I care to admit. I can quote unwieldy chunks of it. In fact, if the audio were to pack in, I could probably narrate the whole thing for my friends. I’m sure they’d be ever so grateful. My point, really, is that it’s very hard to make things feel totally like home, but that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For one, I now know that ‘heftig’ is Norwegian slang for ‘groovy’.
Having thought about this a bit, I have decided that one of the biggest barriers to making things feel homely revolves around the concept of ‘third places’. These are neither home (first place) nor work (second place), but an in-between location where people can socialise. The problem, in my opinion, is that these third places can sometimes become un-homely. The communal kitchen, for example, should feel domestic and cosy, but instead remains at what feels like minus two degrees because someone keeps leaving the window open.
My common room is a case in point. The majority of the time it is warm, friendly, and inviting. There are plenty of leather sofas, and there is tea, coffee, and probably a biscuit if you look hard enough. All good so far. The decidedly un-homely problem, however, is that every time I go there to do some work or have a quiet conversation, a group of people start having a game of table football. I am convinced they are paid actors, and that my life is a weird version of The Truman Show, where instead of a rain cloud following me I have the deafening thuds of a table football game. It is, to my mind, one of those activities that is very fun only if you’re participating. If you’re not participating but happen to be in the same vicinity, it is a form of mild torture and will make you want to cut your ears off. I did debate whether it would be unkind to hide all the footballs, but have decided that this plan is much too fixable. Instead, my ploy is to sneak down in the middle of the night and cut the feet off all the little players.
Before you decide that I’m unreasonably intolerant, I must stress that I have discovered very many new things that give a sense of homeliness and comfort. My flatmate, for example, with whom I share a wall, has started the ever so slightly odd but nonetheless endearing habit of knocking through said wall to me. He starts with the line of a song, at which point I must extricate myself from my essay writing stupor and reply by knocking the following line. At the moment, his choice of music quite heavily revolves around songs from Les Mis. Will I miss this when I go home for the Christmas vac? Probably not. Is it nonetheless wholesome and cheerful when it’s 11pm and I still have 4972 words to write? Absolutely. It’s also given me inspiration. Next time I’m woken up by my flatmates loudly banging cupboard drawers in the kitchen, I’m going to angrily knock through the wall at them. I just have to hope they read my tone, rather than replying with a refrain from ‘One Day More’.