Christmas Party! Millitimed Vaguely to "Sometime Around Christmas"

[kitchen_maid]

Anne and Amy have been very very busy over the last week or so, transforming their usually simple white room into the perfect place for a Christmas party.

There are garlands of holly and balsam strung around the room, leading away from the wreath between the windows (and there's a grumpy looking crow, perched in the middle of the wreath, trying to figure out how to get the red ribbon from around his neck). A Christmas tree, candles ablaze, stands in one corner, with presents tucked under its branches.

Welcome, dear friend, to Anne and Amy's Christmas party.

Comments

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[the-woodpecker.livejournal.com]

Off to get his wife more sugar some cider, Bernard glances over and smiles pointedly.

"Gil. Fancy seeing you here."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[kindred_spirit]

"Merry Christmas, Bernard."

Gil's smile is brighter than the candles on tree.

"How are you this evening?"

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[the-woodpecker.livejournal.com]

"Soldiering on through the ninth month."

...Yeah, he's not getting laid.

"You look well."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[kindred_spirit]

"I trust your wife is feeling well," Gil says. It does not occur to him to wonder about the current state of Bernard's marital relations.

"I'm very well," he says. "Very well, indeed."

He cannot stop smiling.

"Anne and I -- talked."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[the-woodpecker.livejournal.com]

Bernard notes the slight pause.

"Talked, eh?"

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[kindred_spirit]

"Well, others things, too, perhaps," says Gil with a grin. "But the talking is what really matters. Finally said a lot of things we needed to say."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[the-woodpecker.livejournal.com]

There is a smirk.

It is small.

But it's there.

"Well."

If he were anyone else, he'd clap Gil on the shoulder. As it is, he just smiles.

"Told you so."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[kindred_spirit]

"Yes, you did, and I appreciate it."

A smile. "Is your wife here tonight? I'd very much like to meet her."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[the-woodpecker.livejournal.com]

"She is." Bernard cranes his neck. "She's over there... somewhere." After a second, he catches her eye and she starts to make her way over to them.

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[clumsy_auror]

Tonks approaches, slipping her arm automatically around Bernard's waist when she reaches them. She offers Gil a friendly smile. "Hullo."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[kindred_spirit]

"Merry Christmas," he says. "I'm Gilbert Blythe, and it's very good to make your acquaitance."

He gives her a very slight bow.

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[clumsy_auror]

"And Merry Christmas to you," Tonks replies, laughing. "I'm 'Dora Tonks, and you're very polite. Lovely to meet you finally, Gilbert, Bernard's spoken well of you."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[kindred_spirit]

"I'm very honored to hear that. He speaks rather well of you, too," says Gil with a grin.

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[man-of-all-work.livejournal.com]

Further down the refreshment table, a young man is struggling with one of the squirrels.

"No, Simon Perryvall," he says, severely. "You can't look. It would only upset you."

He doesn't seem to be making much headway. Let us hope that the squirrel will not end up in the tea.

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[obligatoryass]

"Maybe you should get him a leash," Logan says thoughtfully. "No one wants to drink squirrel-flavored tea, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like being scalded."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[man-of-all-work.livejournal.com]

Perry only looks at him.

"If you'd like to try and find a leash for a squirrel that would possibly work," he says, drily, "be my guest."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[obligatoryass]

Logan ponders. "Bet someone in my world has done it," he says at last. "There's an almost unending list of useless things that have been invented."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[man-of-all-work.livejournal.com]

"Really?"

Perry looks interested.

"Like what?"

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[obligatoryass]

"Tea cozies, for one," Logan says. "But they could have them where you come from. I bet, though, that they don't have sweaters for dogs there."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[man-of-all-work.livejournal.com]

Perry's eyebrows furrow.

"Why on earth would a dog need a sweater?"

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[obligatoryass]

"That, my friend, is one of life's great mysteries," he says seriously, and gestures with his drink a bit wildly. "No one has solved it yet, so how can you expect me to answer a question that has stymied the best minds of my generation?"

He takes a drink of the spiked punch and says meditatively, "I dated a girl who put her dog in a sweater once. It was tiny. And named Jiminy."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[man-of-all-work.livejournal.com]

"I think I know a similiar sort of girl," Perry ruminates.

"Was she blonde and thin and did she have a smile that always looked fake, no matter what you said or did?"

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[obligatoryass]

"She was," Logan confirms. "She was totally a Beverly Hills princess. Cept in Neptune. Not a bit like a real princess. Real princesses are better. Unless they're Lilly."

Logan knows exactly one real princess, and she's hardly typical. He's not making sense, even to himself.

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[man-of-all-work.livejournal.com]

"Hardly," Perry says, with a quirk to his smile.

"I have found them all to be vapid and conniving at worse, and boring at best. I think you and I must know very different princesses."

Re: Refreshments and Chatter

[obligatoryass]

Logan's eyes widen. "No," he says. "We know the same princesses. Well, one, anyway. I don't know any other actual princesses. Just the Beverly Hills Neptune whatever kind. They're too tan. Sometimes they're kind of orange, and it's scary. Not like Amy. Amy's very pale. And she has freckles. California Princesses do not have freckles. They have them surgically removed."