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

[herotypical]

"Nice of you to join us once again."

One easy movement and she had delivered the phyllo treat into his keeping.

[all7seas]

"Nice to have food with some flavor to it again." Jack chewed and swallowed. "So Kennedy selected this gown for you, hmm?"

[herotypical]

"Young Kennedy, yeah. We ran through a few options but the moment this one...well -- it was kind of a love at first sight thing."

More food. She constructed a plate's worth.

[all7seas]

"Oh. I understand that perfectly well, love." Softspoken, he watched her build his dinner. "Remind me to thank him profusely later on."

[herotypical]

A glance. And then she piled some herbed chicken onto the plate.

"You...you do that. Honestly, the way he made it sound? I figured everyone'd be dressed like this." But a second glance past Jack's shoulder and out at the dance floor provided her with images of larger, more ornate dresses. Hoops and all. Or the more modern ones -- strappy numbers with blinged out embroidery. It only now occurred to her that neither alternative truly suited her own taste.

No -- Archie's choice had been perfect.

[all7seas]

"There are others in this room? Interesting." He tried to dodge around her and pick some of that food off the plate as she was filling it for him.

[herotypical]

She hauled the plate out of his reach. "Patience is a virtue you're now going to share with me. Savvy?"

[all7seas]

"I just want to get through the eating part so I can get to the part where we dance, you an' me." Jack knew better than to try again; the desire to wind her up was strong, but the desire to eat something was stronger. And this food looked amazing.

[herotypical]

"Me and you," she confirmed as she added the finished touch -- a thick slice of apple-crust bread. Then, with a crooked smile, she presented the meal to Jack.

[all7seas]

"Annie? You're a golden treasure, is what you are. Obliged, lass! But aren't you eating as well?"

[herotypical]

"There was a whole sit-down affair, earlier in the evening. I think I'm full." Except this was Buffy, so: "And if I'm not? I'll just have to steal from your plate. Problem solved."

[all7seas]

"Steal from MY plate, will you?" He offered her his arm, balancing the dish with his free hand. "We shall see about that!"

[herotypical]

She hooked her arm around his and directed him squarely towards their own littl quiet corner of the centre. They could split and socialize later but for now Buffy fully intended on monopolizing the pirate's attention.

"A plate that you only have because of me, I'll remind you."

[all7seas]

Once they had found a suitable and rather private table---right by the Christmas tree, in fact, which Jack stared at in confusion and wonder---the pirate drew a chair back for the slayer.

"Keep reminding me, Annie; I've been known to forget things like that at times."

[herotypical]

"I haven't known you to forget a thing that you haven't forgotten on purpose, Jack."

And then, after catching his stares and only now figuring out their inspiration. "Isn't it amazing? The best tree for the space. The only tree a person could want most to decorate here with."

[all7seas]

".........You used my compass to find a tree."


What.

[herotypical]

"Don't look at me like that. I used your compass to find a tree and it was a stroke of genius."

[all7seas]

"My magical, mystical, hard-won compass. A tree." Now he was just winding. He couldn't be displeased with Buffy tonight. Not a chance.

[herotypical]

"And my magically, mystically not-hard-found tree. It's a Christmas party; it needed a tree. Seven'll need a tree, too. But I'm holding off on that one..."

Buffy edged closed. One elbow on the table. "Come on. Admit it. Inspired."

[all7seas]

Jack popped another pastry into his mouth. "Mmmhmm. Like a Renaissance master, you."

[herotypical]

"Exactly like...one of those. A regular Da Vinci, me."

It was possible that she was mistaking Renaissance master with Renaissance man; however, we should all remain eternally grateful that she at least correctly identified an m-word someone from the Renaissance.

Just a little closer.

[all7seas]

"I expect you'll want to keep it, now, and I'll have a devil of a time getting it back from you?"

[herotypical]

"What? No. I'm not keeping it. I don't want to keep it."

Innocent tree-finding was just fine. The thing, in general, still freaked her out.

[all7seas]

Apart from its magical properties, were odd associations with the compass for certain. Jack had left the thing to Derek when he thought he was dead. He didn't think Buffy would act so skittish about it, but he let it lie.

Subject change, perhaps.

"Have you spoken to Aubrey about a certain project on the horizon?"

[herotypical]

"...Project?" She asked lightly as her arm flattened against the table. So so so unsubtle, this scheme.