OOC – here is my holiday drabble, snapshots of each character's Christmas, running in age order (Ingrid, Jemima, Araceli, Jamie, Theodore, Ji-Eun, Francesca, Charlie, Selina and back to Ingrid).
The snow was falling thick and heavy outside their Chicago town house. Once it was settled, she hoped she could persuade someone to come out with her for a snowball fight. She would need to let off some steam, even if it was pre-emptively. The holidays involved a constant round of parties, and that meant being forced into fancy frocks and remembering her pleases and thank yous whilst she talked to stuffy old people and…
...preparations. She had planned out how she was going to decorate for the Christmas Coffee morning whilst she was still at Sonora, although she had had enough tact not to involve Ginger and Lauren, who - whilst they normally shared in all her craft projects - would probably not be invited to this occasion. She’d gone with a fairly classical theme this year, in order to justify her inclusion of mistletoe on the list without rousing too much suspicion. Hopefully Jay and Francesca could be herded underneath it at some point. It had been rather fun plotting with Diana Carey. She was usually one to share every little thing, and it was strange in a way that made her feel tingly and a little subversive to have…
...secrets. Nothing was a secret, nothing was hers. If it wasn’t tea that tasted perfectly ordinary but made you rather unusually talkative, then it was this. The silvery strands of her memories swirled in the bowl, ready to be perused. More than that, they were for…
....studying?! It was Christmas break, for crying out loud. And although the observance of said holiday was minimal in his family, it was supposed to be a time to relax and unwind. Sure, none of them believed in Jesus or Santa Claus, but that wasn’t any reason to throw the whole thing out. There were the presents and the over-eating aspects that he felt he could really get into the spirit of if given half a chance. But he was expected to make homework a priority, followed by helping out in the shop. The fact that the latter awaited him seemed a good reason to spin out the former. It was also much easier to pretend that he was diligently doing that whilst he secretly wrote to Shino or read the latest magazine about…
… Quidditch was something of a rare topic amongst him and his siblings, a subject that may have come as a surprise to many. If Ingrid was involved, it inevitably came up but amongst the older children, they tended to discuss everything but. Politics and their studies were common topics, as were books. Currently, he was rather agitated as the very book he had bought Barnabus for Christmas had come up in discussion, with his brother mentioning how some considerate egit had just had the kindness to lend it to him as holiday reading. He would find something else. It wasn’t difficult per se, he had just been happy and contented with the fact that everything was checked off on that front and now he would have to…
… start again. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself not to let the annoyance show on her face. The cold remedy she’d been helping her mother to prepare was too thick and would not do for sale (not that, officially, they sold medicines of any kind - they were an ingredients shop only, but for friends - which, conveniently extended to everyone in the neighbourhood - home remedies could be arranged, if they just covered the cost of the ingredients, plus a little extra). It was hard to appreciate the honour and privilege it was to be trusted with this task, along with how important it was to her future happiness and usefulness in the world of being a good Korean witch, when she considered all the things her friends might be doing…
...right now, she just had to get through the list of tasks her mother had given her. There were robes to be collected for the boys, and then she had to double check the RVSPs and Floo the caterers to confirm the final numbers. Honestly, one wouldn’t think she had a big pile of RATS holiday assignments upstairs, waiting to be completed. She appreciated that with greater age, and the ability to use magic outside of school, came greater responsibility but really, if her mother had managed thus far without dumping these things on her, could she not have waited an extra year? Although in truth, it was neither of these things that had got her so agitated. Christmas meant parties. That meant the possibility of seeing Jay. And the daunting prospect of possibly doing what she had thought about, whilst secluded at Sonora, safe from it being a reality, of…
…. just coming out and saying it. He knew, theoretically, that it had to be this holiday. He had said he would come clean to Julian before they finished school and he felt he should tell his family first, so that meant it had to be this holiday. But it was Christmas. Ok, sure, it was Chinese take out night, because Christmas involved so much cooking that they were taking every excuse to be lazy in the run up. It wasn't an evening full of special festive magic but it was still family time. The tree, decorated with the mishmash of ornaments including every crap preschool effort he and Henny made was proudly standing in the corner of the room. Everything was supposed to be fun and warm and cosy. It was feeling easier and easier to make excuses to himself now that he was faced with doing it. What was wrong, ultimately, with telling Julian - a trusted friend, and possibly much more affected by said issue - first? But he knew that as soon as he got back to Sonora he would change his mind. He would end up telling no-one, just keep playing off who should be the...
….first Christmas without both of them here. At the moment, everything seemed so normal. They'd done all the usual Christmassy things together – Ema had been home from university for weeks but she and John had waited for term to finish at Sonora and for Krisalyn to have a free evening. They had all put up the tree together, then roasted marshmallows, and even Ema was being on her best, most affectionate behaviour. Her awkward teenage phase was rapidly rescinding. Although Selina still wished her daughter would grow out of those scruffy teenage styles, they seemed to have reached a truce over mentioning them, at least over Christmas, and Ema didn't fly off the handle over every other last thing as she had during her true teenage terror years. Selina wondered whether she was imagining it, the girls had never been especially close sisters, but she thought Ema was almost as upset about Krisalyn going to spend Christmas Day at her boyfriend's as Selina was. She was happy-sad, of course. Krisalyn's other half was a fine young man, and it was nice to see her daughter doing so well, but it just wasn't going to be the same. Ema had been very firm about how everything should be, on the insistence that certain things, things that she herself could not admit having ever really noticed, were traditional, or were how they had always done them. They would see Krisalyn again on the twenty-sixth, and they had so many other family coming over or to go to, that they were still bound to be...
… busy, busy, busy. She stomped out into the snow with a pout on her face, ready to use the windows for target practise, seeing as no one else had the time to play with her.