Comfort and Joy

[simplestgift]

Who: Come one, come all! ...In formal attire.
What: A Christmas ball, old world style.
When: December 1st, beginning around five in the afternoon and ending when the last person leaves.
Where: The rec center.
Summary: Earth's eighteenth-century peeps are throwing one hell of a party.
Rating: Well, considering no one is serving water? Probably PG-13 for alcohol consumption and the results thereof (there's coffee and hot chocolate!).

The recreation center has been utterly transformed.

The doors open to a host of candles and a warm, old-world smell and feel. The scent of food and spices hangs in the air—mulled wine, wassail, evergreen boughs, fresh bread and roast meat. Cream brocades, simple but elegant, are draped over the walls. Traditional red rugs have been thrown over the floor. Gone are the billiard tables, ping-pong, and foosball. It looks like a different place entirely, every table impeccably dressed with light linen cloths and set with fine china and crystal. At least one-half of the room is cleared and ready for dancers.

The tables are lit with candles, and five chandeliers have been temporarily added to the room for more light, giving the room a golden glow instead of the sterile luminescence of fluorescent lighting. On the tables, boughs of evergreen and holly surround the candles, and mistletoe has been hung discreetly here and there. In one corner of the dancing area, by a large and beautifully decorated fir tree (Buffy’s insistence), the musicians are set up to play, unobtrusive to the diners but essential to the dancers. Leading them is Frederic Chopin himself, and few here can say they have had anyone better play for their pleasure.

Things will begin with a grand dinner late in the afternoon, with a light supper (mostly consisting of cold meats, bread, and other lighter fare) at around nine o’clock. The selection of food on the tables is enormous. Most of it is meat-based and some of it is simply meat. Roast beef with mushrooms, goose in giblet gravy, herbed chicken, baked salmon, and a whole pig are among the choices. There is some hope for vegetarians, though, with spinach mixed with bread crumbs and cheese on small toasts, turnips (or rutabagas if you speak American), onions, carrots, parsnips, mashed potatoes, asparagus in breadcrumbs, and savory onion and wild mushroom pies. There is hot fresh bread and rolls with butter and heaps upon heaps of small mince pies filled with fruit, molasses, and yes, a little minced lamb. Moreover, there are fresh winter fruits like oranges and mikans and many different desserts, such as Christmas pudding, a rum chocolate dessert, and spotted dog with custard. Sit and help yourself. For a complete list of the food offered, take a look here.

Among the drinks throughout the evening are wassail, tea, hot chocolate (less sweet and much more intense than most modern characters would be used to, made with cinnamon, vanilla, and a hint of cayenne pepper), coffee, brandy, wine both mulled and plain, port, sherry, and gallons of rum punch. Even though the food is fantastic, overseen by Jack Aubrey, the conversation is the point of the game, and who knows who they will wind up sitting beside. At the center of each table is placed a pineapple as a sign of welcome and wishes of prosperity.

There is dancing light as the music itself, with Archie Kennedy and Elizabeth Swann teaching the steps of each dance before striking up the music and letting everyone go to town with it. They are poised and elegant but relaxed and seeming to glide as they demonstrate the motions with an effortlessness that comes with years of practice. They were both raised on these dances and this sort of social function and seem completely at home here. The dancing begins after dinner with the minuets and continues after a light supper with some informal English country dances. Anyone unused to dancing like this may find that it’s harder than it looks, but when one gets used to it, it feels very graceful, beautiful, and…fun! The activity will only end when there are too few dancers left to continue, and will continue all night if possible. As dancers pass each other or move hand-in-hand, eye contact can be made, quiet words exchanged, subtle (or not) messages passed as they spin through the room, or perhaps the room spins while they remain still.

It might depend on how much they’ve had to drink.

Those who do not wish to dance have other activities to participate in. In one corner, card tables are set up with multiple decks of cards stacked up, and there is even a box or two of dominoes and a handful of dice. The tables themselves are round and made of polished rosewood or mahogany. This area is well-lit and on the opposite end of the room from the musicians and dancers, probably as a mercy to the tone-deaf Horatio Hornblower who loves cards but can’t abide music. Here, discreet (or indiscreet) gambling is inevitable. There may be no money here, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to wager.

Are you lingering at the dining tables, drinking and talking loud and laughing with friends, or will you shyly sit and watch the dancing and games and hope to be invited in? Are you sitting quietly alone and listening to the music as your foot taps on its own, or are you unable to sit still and ready to dance all night if they’ll let you? Are you playing cards with a few new acquaintances, or are you hanging on someone’s arm and helping them cheat?

Whatever you do, have fun.

Comments

[captainhornblower]

Horatio Hornblower had a new uniform jacket commissioned for the occasion. (With a single epaulet, on his right shoulder, proper for a junior post captain.) It would hardly do to play part-host to a party and look at all shabby. Luceti's lack of currency, too, might have something to do with his willingness to have such a thing done. There are no prices to fret over or money to be saved, so such an indulgence could be excused.

Most often, he can be found at the far corner of the room, when not dining. He has a pack of cards and a favourite table, and he is more than happy to guide any group through the learning of whist. (Which he will insist is an easy game once you play it. Individuals may beg to differ.)

Of course, socialising is necessary, dislike it though he might at times. ...Certain creatures of the female variety might be able, if cunning enough, convince him to dance. Or simply smile at him and insist when he demurs the first time. (A word of warning. The tone-deafness is quite literal. He can pick out a rhythm, but only with a single instrument playing. He will be lost if anything more than, say, a piano is playing the music. Convince him to dance at your peril.)

[boomchucka.livejournal.com]

Why hello there Mister Hornblower, you might just find yourself with a bright eyed little guest of a pest coming over to say hello to you. She saw that fancy new coat of yours from a distance and just had to come over to bother you. It makes him look quite dashing in Selphie's eyes though as she dips and darts through the crowd before finally making her way over to him.

She'll tap him on the shoulders before sitting down next to him with the sunniest Christmas grin he'll ever encounter in his life. If it were any brighter in fact, he may just go blind. She looks from Horatio to the decks of cards a few times before she picks up a deck and starts shuffling it with a good amount of skill.

"Good evening Mister Hornblower," she says politely.

[captainhornblower]

"Good evening, Miss Selphie," he replies.

His eyes watch her shuffle the cards, and he smiles faintly. It's a warm expression for him, fonder than most here would warrant. There might even be, if one chose to classify it as such, a paternal air to the way he regarded her. He made a motion toward the cards.

"Do you play?"

[boomchucka.livejournal.com]

"Card games are a good procrastination technique when you don't want to do your homework on a saturday night," she explains before setting the deck down.

She looks at him curiously though. She's played more than her fair share of card games but not the one that he's interested in playing. "What game did you wish to play?"

[captainhornblower]

Beware, Selphie. He can't hear music, but he can count cards.

"I don't suppose you play whist."

He doubted anyone in this town did. Well, no. He knew a few did. One of whom he had no interest in playing with, another of whom was gone. He might convince Maturin, Aubrey, and Kennedy into one game, but it would not last long. Archie was quite at home amongst the crowd and dancing, and Horatio was not keen to keep him away from that.

"I'm not sure, I'm afraid, what card games will have remained in fashion, Miss Selphie."

[boomchucka.livejournal.com]

"We played games that you likely haven't heard of because I've never heard of Whist."

She looks from Horatio to the deck with a playful smile on her face however. She's always up for new challenges and one had just been presented before.

"I wouldn't mind learning how to play if you don't mind teaching me."

[captainhornblower]

Something in Horatio's eyes sparks, and he sits up a bit. "Perhaps a lesson for a lesson. I shall teach you whist, and you teach me a game of your choosing."

He glances around the room, taking stock of the others around. "Whist requires four," he explains. "So I shall have to hunt us up a third and fourth."

[boomchucka.livejournal.com]

Selphie nods as she places a deck in front of her before she shuffles through her memory of the games she'd played as a child. There's only one particular game that she enjoyed the most and still partakes in a game or two upon occasion.

"A lesson for a lesson. You teach me whist and I'll teach you how to play war. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_%28card_game%29)"

[captainhornblower]

For a brief, brief moment, Hornblower's features betray a sceptical look. 'War' was his daily life. A game by the same name... But it is a fair trade, so he makes himself smile as he nods.

"We have an agreement then, Miss Selphie."

[boomchucka.livejournal.com]

It's her favourite game, Horatio. The skeptical look passes her by in an instant but she's nodding happily. Their culture is different from her own in a good way and learning better manners is always a plus as well.

"We do. So, shall we go find some extra players then?"

[simplestgift]

During dinner, Archie sits at Horatio's left hand and makes sure he eats, to the point where he actually serves him an extra helping of a meat pie without being asked to do so.

"Here. I couldn't possibly have imagined the turnout would be this many, Horatio. By God, we relics have some use after all!"

[captainhornblower]

"It's something, isn't it, Archie?" He chuckles, not even complaining about the extra food Archie is putting on his plate. "It seems that some things, at least, do not go out of style." Music and food would always, it seemed to him, be a cause to bring people together.

[simplestgift]

"Never." Archie takes a long drink of rum punch. "You and I aren't relics, we're classics. Legends. Captain Horatio Hornblower and his trusted lieutenant."

He's had a little bit more punch than necessary.

[captainhornblower]

"Legends, are we?" He grinned, raising a glass to his friend. He couldn't help the jest, the memory still clear in his mind, funnier now than it had been then. "Like Robin Hood?"

[simplestgift]

"Better than Robin Hood."

[tehoniongirl.livejournal.com]

It's only later in the evening that Jilly breaks away from the crowds to come over to the card tables. At first, she simply watches, observing as Horatio masterfully plays his way through hand after hand. But when the next game breaks, she reaches in to intervene, reaching out to pull at his elbow with a laugh.

"I think, Mr. Hornblower, that I'm obligated to steal you, now. For everyone's sake."