Gabriel, Nihad, Mirsadi and Nikita experience a gorgeous volley of Alpine snow on our very own crepuscular campus.

Just a quiet night-time drop-in from your friends at the Olympus Boarding House with a few notes on the winter season that careens towards us at break-neck speed. Simultaneously welcomed and…braced for.

Despite being after our curfew, we couldn’t resist letting our boys out for some extra time to shove each other into snowbanks, drop ice down each others shirts and in the case of Gabriel, be kidnapped by Hawaiian Aliens and dropped back to earth through a Christmas Display at Globus.

We all celebrate the winter season differently. Deeper in European regions, Christmas is very much in the Christian tradition. Christ’s birthday is the centre-piece of the season. But with our international campus, we all celebrate some semblance of the holiday. Often divorced from the original religious significance of the season, but very much a celebration of family, community and cheery, charitable spirit. For so many, the burning hearth is a symbol of this season. And I have always interpreted the stoking of the flames as the kindness that we do unto each other, stoking the hearths in each others hearts.

For when the night is at its darkest and at its longest and at its coldest, we crowd closer to the fire. And in spirit, closer to each other in the harshest time of the year.

So we wish you all the best from Olympus. And as much as we’d love to trust the boys with fire, we’ll have to stick with our central heating. And crowd around the warm communal spirit we’re so lucky to have firmly at the heart of our boarding house.

Warm winter-time wishes from Olympus!