AS the dark nights draw in a festival of light was celebrated by nursery school children in Summertown.

The event at The Oxford Nursery on Thursday came ahead of a weekend of Diwali festivities across the city.

Children at the nursery, all aged under five, took part in Bollywood dancing, learned Diwali stories and wore traditional Indian dress.

Their hands were decorated with henna, and made and painted diya lamps – oil lamps made from clay with a cotton wick dipped in ghee used in India and Nepal.

Bernali Das, a nursery key worker told the Oxford Mail: "The children loved it, they were really happy all day.

"I'm the only Indian staff member, but we have one child from Nepal – Stanley – who also celebrates.

"We're a multi-cultural nursery, we celebrate lots of holidays, like Eid, Christmas, and Chinese New Year."

"We have one parent who has lots of Indian clothes because her husband has been on lots of business trips to India.

"She lent lots of them to the staff so they were all in traditional Indian dress.

The city will continue to be illuminated tonight.

Oxford Hindu Temple and Community Centre Project is hosting a Diwali dinner and dance at The Oxford Academy in Sandy Lane West, Littlemore.

This will include a three course dinner, as well as a Bollywood dance, entertainment, music, and a DJ.

All the proceeds go to the long-term project of building a Hindu temple in Oxford.

Mukesh Shori, the chairman of the event said: "This is our ninth year running and we're already sold out.

"Typically we get between 350 and 400 people.

"We like to refresh the entertainment every year – so this year we have a well known Bollywood dance group called Tishool coming all the way from Manchester.

"People tend to dress smart, but there's no hard and fast rule on traditional dress. "We get a lot of English people come too – it's really nice to mingle wit them."

Diwali, also known as Deepavali, is a Hindu festival and is marked every year in autumn in the northern hemisphere.

It spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness and good over evil.

The Tree Hotel in Iffley is also celebrating the festival with a banquet, dancing and fireworks.

Doors open at 7pm and the fireworks display is from 9pm.

Andy Klurek, the assistant manager of the restaurant said: "It's one of our biggest events of the year after our summer beer festival and Christmas.

"We're expecting about 100 people – we have one group of 30 Indian people who will all be in traditional dress."

Diwali is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains and is an official holiday in India, Nepal and nine other countries.