simplestgift: (Just a little idle talk of this and that)
Archie Kennedy ([personal profile] simplestgift) wrote in [community profile] lucetilogs2011-11-30 10:14 pm

Comfort and Joy

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.
herotypical: [ happy ] (✝ cause they've years of experience)

[personal profile] herotypical 2011-12-08 08:48 pm (UTC)(link)
"Archie's one of the good ones, yeah." Though he could be a bit of a brat, by times -- and she and the ex-lieutenant were known to get into quite a few quiet, simmering rows.

Buffy wondered whether she should ask Melaka by the for the morning. The poor girl would otherwise be all alone.
nocorsetsplease: (sf //  Can I be blamed for my efforts?)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-13 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Elizabeth took a drink from her glass of wassail and smiled toward Buffy, as though she agreed with thoughts she could not hear.

"The more one can fill their home with dear ones, the brighter the holiday will be."
herotypical: (} enroll at the local college)

[personal profile] herotypical 2011-12-13 05:23 pm (UTC)(link)
"...Exactly. And Seven's never meant to be quiet."
nocorsetsplease: (To wait is to wound and own but time.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2011-12-13 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'd grown so accustomed to raucous settings that my stay on the Britannia was unsettling. I'm glad that it is so, in House Seven."

Another sip. It warmed her, and made her less nervous.
herotypical: (} and in her glove compartment)

[personal profile] herotypical 2011-12-13 06:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"...We used to have six of us at the house. In the old days. And back home...well, back home I live with even more. Hundreds."
nocorsetsplease: (Is that so?)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2012-01-05 06:50 am (UTC)(link)
"If there is a woman who can understand close quarters, the woman would undoubtedly be myself. I am sure the Captain and his most remarkable Lieutenant Kennedy have not spared you the knowledge of what it is to be ona ship."

Sometimes she missed them, the men whose loyalty she had earned recently and had yet to prove herself worthy of keeping. Often she missed the men of the Pearl, who knew her well.

"I do miss it."
herotypical: [ neutral ; angry ] (✝ so what's that funny smell)

[personal profile] herotypical 2012-01-05 01:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"I've been informed. But I've also seen the movies. Took the history classes. I've caught the drift. Generally. Though -- even as I say that? I realize that castle-living is nothing like it is in Hollywood. Do you realize how expensive those things are to heat?"
nocorsetsplease: (She clung to her dreams like bars.)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2012-01-09 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
"Houses were difficult enough, from what I remember in England! Castles have fireplaces all over."

A pause. "I don't envy trying to light them all, though I've missed having reason to light a fire. The cold is a lovely change."
herotypical: [ snarky ; angry ; hands ] (✝ you're all cold)

[personal profile] herotypical 2012-01-09 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah? Well, my castle doesn't seem to have enough of them. Fireplaces. Not to mention the make everything smell like smoke,"
nocorsetsplease: (Look Jack!  A blue footed boobie!)

[personal profile] nocorsetsplease 2012-01-09 09:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Elizabeth thought about that for a moment. Of all the smells she had taken note of, she had never marked the smell of smoke from a fire as an unpleasant one. Although... there were occasions where being covered in the soot of explosion had not made her pleasantly perfumed.

"I always thought it nice, though I could see the problem."

[Typists note: Would you like to move this to a DW appointments? For ease of access XD ]