meet the (grand)parents...

[theresalwayshope]

Allison felt a little like she was going insane.

She started out just planning to invite Aramis and Porthos over to meet Jason. Dinner and drinks, nothing big. Then she realized she didn't just feel obligated to invite Athos, she wanted to. So, if she did that, she obviously had to invite D'artagnan, and she really wanted to meet Constance...and she'd promised Grey a chance to help her bake a cake, so if she did something more than dinner, she could let him come over at some point...

The small family dinner became a small dinner party, and with a few more additions morphed into an impromptu potluck for the whole building...or anyone that wanted to show up. She told the family about it privately, asking Porthos and Aramis to make sure the others at least stopped by (with a subtle warning that Jason would be there), told everyone else she knew in the city, and for the rest of the building she posted a couple of handmade fliers: one in the elevator, and another in the laundry room announcing that, with either a main course or appetizer offering, an invitation to the holiday celebration taking place in apartment #39...dressy casual to formalwear welcome, bring your favorite Christmas CD as a bonus.

And, of course, she told Jason...and told him her family would be there.

By the night of the party, Allison was ready...she just felt a little like she was going insane.

She kept her outfit cute, but simple, and took care of dessert by baking some cupcakes, gingerbread cookies, and a two layer chocolate cake which she invited Grey over to help her bake. With a little careful scheduling, she also managed to contribute to the food on hand with her second ever attempt at beef bourguignon: rich, hearty, and sort of impressive under the right circumstances. By party time, she had her front door standing open, some Trans Siberian Orchestra carols playing on her stereo, and while she didn't yet have a tree, she'd gotten some cute plastic holly garland to hang around the apartment, and for fun had ringed her whole living room ceiling in multicolor Christmas lights for good measure.

The party was good to go. The place smelled good, the food came out okay with more to come...the evening was good to go.

And when Jason showed up, her family would show up...and they'd all meet each other...

While she waited for her guests, loved ones, and boyfriend to start arriving, Allison puttered around in her kitchen, swore to herself she was not hiding, and tried to pretend that she wasn't having visions of someone either drawing a sword or a knife by the end of the evening.

Tonight had to be perfect.

(HOLIDAY GATHERING POST! Treat it thusly. :P Front door's open, come and go as you please, anyone in the Bramford Building is welcome, and if you know Allison even remotely she told you about the party. Gather at will, and leave a call for Allison in your subject line if you want to play with her directly! Open eternally, will probably be linked near the end of the month. :D)

Comments

[herownrules]

Kenya laughs as she takes it from him, fiddling with the wrapper until it pulls back. She pauses before taking a bite, considering the candy cane. "How do I know this isn't some convoluted plot to poison me?"

[sciencesaggressively]

He gives her his best innocent smile--which might not actually come across as innocent at all but he's really not too sure, he doesn't practice this one often--and shrugs, picking up a candy cane of his own and dangling the curved end over his finger as he arches an eyebrow.

"Guess you'll never know until you try. But then again, if you don't try, you'll never know the taste of candy that exists year-round, just not in holiday-specific caned form so... I don't know, potential for death or promise of sugary goodness? Only you can decide what's worth the risk."

[herownrules]

“I don’t know,” she answers melodramatically, drawing her brows together as she considers the cane. This in just one of the things Newt is good for, she thinks, having fun and forgetting to act serious for a few minutes. “It’s a chance I have to take.”

The crunch is familiar enough, but the spiciness of the candy comes as a surprise to her. It’s sweet, but that adds a rush that is unexpected. “I like it.”

[sciencesaggressively]

He holds his breath when she takes her first bite, like he's waiting for a kaiju to pop out of the goddamn ocean or something, that's totally how fucking major of a moment this feels right now because nobody deserves to be deprived of candy canes during the holiday season and especially not at a Christmas party.

"Good," he says through a sigh of relief, "I was kind of worried that I'd built it up too much, y'know? I hate when that happens, that's exactly what happened when that Matthew Broderick version of Godzilla came out, and my dad kept telling me how great it was going to be so I was all excited, and I was like, eight years old, and it turned out that it was the opposite of great, it was the worst."

He's not still bitter about it nearly three decades later, though, definitely not.

[herownrules]

"Is Godzilla the one with the monster that destroyed Japan?" She knows a bit about movies, even if there are only a few she's seen. Records lasted the Pale Wars better than film, which makes it a rarity. But people talked about them still, even if she has no idea who Matthew Broderick is. "I like this. I like this a lot."

[sciencesaggressively]

"That's the one. Godzilla was the original kaiju! Okay, maybe not the original but pretty much like, the most well known. He was like, this monster resurrected by all these nuclear tests in the Pacific, y'know? And he's all like hey, fuck you, I'm Godzilla, and takes out Japan. Except it was pretty much a commentary on the nuclear testing, y'know, basically it was saying that if it continued, there'd be more and more Godzillas coming back to wreak havoc in the future. So not just a monster movie."

He has a lot to say about Godzilla, but he sticks his candy cane back in his mouth and smiles around it at Kenya instead before pulling it back out with a pop. "Have you tried spiked eggnog yet? Ooh, or gingerbread cookies? You have to try the gingerbread cookies, I love those things. And shit, the seasonal holiday drinks from the coffee shops, there's so much you have to experience!"