Post by pinkie on Jan 5, 2010 14:43:00 GMT -5
Merry Christmas, Sprinks!
(yes, i know it is january fifth... so Happy New Year to you too!)
My muse refused to visit me and thus this is what i came up with. It is a rather rough draft still, but i am pleased with the idea. Give me some time and i will make it into something awesome for you!
A hot chocolate Christmas
A sharp wind blew over the moors around the cottage and against the windows of the kitchen, where Pomona was warming wine in a small saucepan on the stove. The smell of the wine, the orange peel and spices wafted through the kitchen into the drawing room. In a few minutes, Pomona would enjoy a cup of this mulled wine, a Muggle magazine and some tunes on the radio. Christmas was nearly here. She had been taking the little suprises from her advent calendar (most of them were chocolates, what else?) and counting the days.
Filius would be home for Christmas.
When Pomona decided to retire and give all her responsibilities to Neville, she had hoped Filius would pack it in too, but this had been a hope of the idle kind and Filius had made up his mind to keep on teaching for a while, until Minerva gave up too. When Pomona looked at Minerva, the strong, tall, powerful woman she was proud to call her friend, she felt it would be a long time coming. Filius coming home would definitely not be soon.
Pomona knew her man well enough and she did not wish to have him with her if he had his mind at Hogwarts. So she had decided for herself to fully enjoy it when he came home to the cottage. Christmas on the moors would not be as lavish as it always was in the Great Hall. For one, Pomona did not have any house elfs, but she knew what kind of food made Filius happy, so she was not worried.
Yesterday she had decorated the tree, she had gone to the shops to get the food in and there was now a rather enormous turkey in her icebox. The thing was far too big to devour with just the two of them, but they would have a darn good try – if the bird did not come from the oven dry as a bone.
There were cranberries and oranges in the pantry, she had made mincemeat weeks ago (she hoped it had not gone funny) and there was fresh pastry in the lader. In her drinks cabinet she had a bottle of brandy and a bottle of port. All things she could have done in advance were done and all she had to do now was wait for the day that Filius came home for Christmas.
A fire was crackling in the fireplace and the flames licked the dry wood. There was a wicker basket with pinecones next to the sofa and now and then Pomona threw one in the fire. She drank her mulled wine and read about Muggle practices of ‘yoga’, ‘mindfulness’. She sniggered a bit, thinking that ‘mindfulness’ to her meant mostly not hitting her head on the low beam over the stairs, but these Muggles made it into something quite unappealing.
Apparently, Muggles suffered from this thing called: ‘stress’. A kind of psychological tension, which came from frustration, high expectations and a pending feeling of doom. Stress was dangerous and could lead to both psychological and physical problems.
Christmas was a great time of stress for Muggles, she read. This young woman (Pomona sniggered, these days nearly every woman was a young one, compared to herself), had written a short non-fiction story, revealing her feelings about Christmas.
“Christmas is a child’s feast. Decorating the tree, lovely snacks of peppermint sticks and presents to be opened. Two weeks of vacation, filled with great movies on the telly (telly? Pomona thought) and if you are lucky a lot of snow make snowmen in, build fortresses and throw snowballs at your siblings, friends and the occassional policeman.
For a grown up, a so-called adult, Christmas comes with stress.
What to get your mother. What to get his mother. What to get respective fathers. Your sister’s children. Mrs Green next door… none of them will be happy with what you get them, even though you will have gone through horrendous traffic to get yourself to a shopping center or high street and you have wrestled a grubby looking woman for that last angora sweater in a size 12. They will look at it and with plasticine faces say: ‘Oh how lovely. You shouldn’t have.” By which they mean: you shouldn’t have. Really. You ought to have bought a winning lottery ticket and not one for a hundred quid, but the one that would win a million pounds, tax free.
A turkey. Big enough to feed you and your partner, your parents, his parents, your sister and her three children and his brother with the ever changing girlfriend (yes, she will be a bubbly blonde with legs up to her armpits and perky double D’s that need no support). No-one really likes turkey, but it is the tradition. As is the battle of getting the big thing in your ‘made for one pizza’-oven. Of course you will have it defrosting in the sink for two days before you can actually try and cook it.
You will slip on a stray cranberry and hit your elbow against the stack of plates you had set up on the counter to be placed on the table by your boyfriend of five years, but who is conveniently playing some kind of zombie slaying computer game (computer game? Those Muggles, what are they like?!) and all the plates fall on the tiled floor, giving you not only a sore elbow, but shards of earthenware to clean up.
This is the moment you sent said boyfriend to the store to get more plates – you don’t care if they are plastics from Tesco or some kind of fancy porcelain from Harrods, you start scrubbing the floor and you sit down for a bit of a think.
What if you would suddenly, quite accidentally, contract flu. That Mexican flu thing. H1N1 – or hini as a friend called it. You would have to stay in bed, not get into contact with other people besides your boyfriend (who will call you to ask where the hell he is supposed to get plates from) and nobody would care if you’d get a Chinese.
Then your mother calls to ask if she is supposed to bring your father’s favourite tipple and had you seen the crackers at Marks and Sparks? Three for two now and should she get you some. Totally numb you agree to that and you start peeling potatoes for mash, so many you think you are feeding the Middlesex Regiment.
You have everything prepared and you spend Christmas Eve hoovering, dusting, cleaning and clearing up. The tree is already losing needles and two baubles have shattered on the floor so far. Your next door neighbours are having a party and you hear the not-so-soothing sounds of this year’s Christmas number one, Slade and Mud. You decide that you are having a prick and ping mac and cheese (Pomona could feel her eyebrows knit together, what was the girl on about? Prick and ping?) and go to bed early, sure that tomorrow won’t be half as bad as you are anticipating.
Your alarm goes at six, you jump out of bed, not feeling as chipper as that might make you sound and you go downstairs to check on the turkey.
Damn thing is still frozen solid.
You open the tap and let cold water run over it for about an hour, while you get ready making the stuffing, peeling parsnips and try to find that one Christmas cd you have lingering around somewhere.
The turkey is as good as defrosted. You take the print-out of the Delia Smith method your best friend gave you and follow all the instructions to the letter. Of course it turns out you do not have one or two of the ingredients, so you wing it - or if you are even more stressed, you break down in a hysterical weeping match and then get on with it - and manage to get the whole thing in your tiny oven, without the bacon touching the iron bar that will heat the whole thing up.
Now comes the time for relaxation. Or at least, in theory. You get to take a bath and get dressed. Oh this is only theory and we all know it. You have been fiddling with faulty lids, you have worked your way around breakfast, having a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, both half drunk and eaten, forgotten in a corner of the kitchen now and you and Mister I-don’t-know-where-to-buy-things-that-are-not-Xbox-games (Xbox games? I bet that has something to do with those comp... comp... comp-something or other) have not even opened presents.
So the long, luxurious bath turns into a hurried shower, you jump into that pair of office trousers, pull that jumper your grandmother knitted you in 1992 over your head - it is a bit tight in certain places that were not quite as well developed as they are now, pull a comb through your mop and smear some eyeshadow and mascara on designated places, grab socks from your drawer (a green one and a purple one, but you can't be bothered) and you race back to your turkey to start the sacred basting.
You are wearing an apron your sister once gave your for Christmas and this is the moment the front door bell rings and your parents are in the hall, since they decided to come early: because it is Christmas.
Your mother - either meaning well or trying to get you ready for the loony bin - proposes to lend a hand and starts making bread sauce, even though no-one likes it and asks for a gravy boat, which you do not have, at which point she starts to pick a fight over how young women these days do not make an effort in any household chores. In the back of your mind you seem to recall the same speech, but coming from your grandmother directed straight at your mother, who seems to have memorised it word for word.
You just nod and get on with the mashing and basting. More bells ring, your mother goes out into the living room where she bestows love upon her grandchildren (your sisters spoiled brats, you got them a frisbee and a pogo stick as presents, the thought of which makes your evil laughter explode into the brussel sprouts) and you can hear your boyfriend talking to your father and offering drinks all around.
Of course you don’t get any, since you are in the kitchen. Strange, because you are the one person there who could really use a drink!
Then the alarm goes and everything is supposed to be ready. You check the bird. It still has to go for at least another ten minutes. You go into the room, where the children are glaring at the presents and your brother in law is already on his third Scotch. You help yourself to a generous G&T, sit down and for all of seven minutes you feel really quite Christmassy.
After checking again, you take the bird from the oven, let it rest on the chopping board, while you try to transform the cooking juices into a lovely, rich gravy. Of course yours is lumpy and you resort to a blessing from Tesco’s: instant gravy that goes into the microwave. No-one sets foot in the kitchen now anyway and you check the seasoning in your mash, you prod the parsnips and carrots. The sprouts are looking sufficiently miserable, so you are ready to eat.
With help from your father and boyfriend you dish the whole thing up. You pull crackers, don’t laugh at the jokes, put on the silly hat and in about half an hour, everybody is full up and the opening of presents can begin. You have said: “Leave some room for pudding and brandy butter!” But nobody will have taken notice of that, so you are left with a foul tasting christmas pud you had purchased at Asda. the wrapping is torn off presents, everybody lies about how happy they are with their gifts and if you are lucky, everybody buggers off before tea.
The house looks like a warzone.
There is still half a turkey left.
The breadsauce has gone all funny and there is stuffing under the christmas tree. There are needles in the jug where the gravy used to be and one of the candles has set fire to part of the paper tablecloth with dancing snowmen and a Santa with red nose.
You don’t even bother with stacking the dishwasher.
You just crash on the couch. There is no-one left to save Christmas but Julie Andrews.
The familiar tones of all too familiar songs grace the cables, your boyfriend makes you hot chocolate and sneaks in some rum, sets down a plate of chocolate orange segments and biscuits.
Finally.
It’s Christmas.”
Pomona put down the magazine. She felt connected with the writer. Not because she would be so stressed for Christmas, Merlin no, she had a schedule and there was nothing that could go horribly wrong - unless her wand would break - but because in the end, they shared that same feeling that was Christmas.
Cuddling on the couch.
Because that is what Christmas is all about: sharing it with your loved ones, in a way that would make you happy. In Pomona’s case that would be close to Filius and listening to the wireless, drink hot chocolate or mulled wine and eating chocolates.
It was at that precise moment that the front door opened and Filius stepped inside. He was carrying presents.
“Merry Christmas.” he said as he was being enveloped by Pomona.
“Merry Christmas.” she answered.
They did not make it to the couch that Christmas Eve, but there were plenty of cuddles to be had...
(yes, i know it is january fifth... so Happy New Year to you too!)
My muse refused to visit me and thus this is what i came up with. It is a rather rough draft still, but i am pleased with the idea. Give me some time and i will make it into something awesome for you!
A hot chocolate Christmas
A sharp wind blew over the moors around the cottage and against the windows of the kitchen, where Pomona was warming wine in a small saucepan on the stove. The smell of the wine, the orange peel and spices wafted through the kitchen into the drawing room. In a few minutes, Pomona would enjoy a cup of this mulled wine, a Muggle magazine and some tunes on the radio. Christmas was nearly here. She had been taking the little suprises from her advent calendar (most of them were chocolates, what else?) and counting the days.
Filius would be home for Christmas.
When Pomona decided to retire and give all her responsibilities to Neville, she had hoped Filius would pack it in too, but this had been a hope of the idle kind and Filius had made up his mind to keep on teaching for a while, until Minerva gave up too. When Pomona looked at Minerva, the strong, tall, powerful woman she was proud to call her friend, she felt it would be a long time coming. Filius coming home would definitely not be soon.
Pomona knew her man well enough and she did not wish to have him with her if he had his mind at Hogwarts. So she had decided for herself to fully enjoy it when he came home to the cottage. Christmas on the moors would not be as lavish as it always was in the Great Hall. For one, Pomona did not have any house elfs, but she knew what kind of food made Filius happy, so she was not worried.
Yesterday she had decorated the tree, she had gone to the shops to get the food in and there was now a rather enormous turkey in her icebox. The thing was far too big to devour with just the two of them, but they would have a darn good try – if the bird did not come from the oven dry as a bone.
There were cranberries and oranges in the pantry, she had made mincemeat weeks ago (she hoped it had not gone funny) and there was fresh pastry in the lader. In her drinks cabinet she had a bottle of brandy and a bottle of port. All things she could have done in advance were done and all she had to do now was wait for the day that Filius came home for Christmas.
A fire was crackling in the fireplace and the flames licked the dry wood. There was a wicker basket with pinecones next to the sofa and now and then Pomona threw one in the fire. She drank her mulled wine and read about Muggle practices of ‘yoga’, ‘mindfulness’. She sniggered a bit, thinking that ‘mindfulness’ to her meant mostly not hitting her head on the low beam over the stairs, but these Muggles made it into something quite unappealing.
Apparently, Muggles suffered from this thing called: ‘stress’. A kind of psychological tension, which came from frustration, high expectations and a pending feeling of doom. Stress was dangerous and could lead to both psychological and physical problems.
Christmas was a great time of stress for Muggles, she read. This young woman (Pomona sniggered, these days nearly every woman was a young one, compared to herself), had written a short non-fiction story, revealing her feelings about Christmas.
“Christmas is a child’s feast. Decorating the tree, lovely snacks of peppermint sticks and presents to be opened. Two weeks of vacation, filled with great movies on the telly (telly? Pomona thought) and if you are lucky a lot of snow make snowmen in, build fortresses and throw snowballs at your siblings, friends and the occassional policeman.
For a grown up, a so-called adult, Christmas comes with stress.
What to get your mother. What to get his mother. What to get respective fathers. Your sister’s children. Mrs Green next door… none of them will be happy with what you get them, even though you will have gone through horrendous traffic to get yourself to a shopping center or high street and you have wrestled a grubby looking woman for that last angora sweater in a size 12. They will look at it and with plasticine faces say: ‘Oh how lovely. You shouldn’t have.” By which they mean: you shouldn’t have. Really. You ought to have bought a winning lottery ticket and not one for a hundred quid, but the one that would win a million pounds, tax free.
A turkey. Big enough to feed you and your partner, your parents, his parents, your sister and her three children and his brother with the ever changing girlfriend (yes, she will be a bubbly blonde with legs up to her armpits and perky double D’s that need no support). No-one really likes turkey, but it is the tradition. As is the battle of getting the big thing in your ‘made for one pizza’-oven. Of course you will have it defrosting in the sink for two days before you can actually try and cook it.
You will slip on a stray cranberry and hit your elbow against the stack of plates you had set up on the counter to be placed on the table by your boyfriend of five years, but who is conveniently playing some kind of zombie slaying computer game (computer game? Those Muggles, what are they like?!) and all the plates fall on the tiled floor, giving you not only a sore elbow, but shards of earthenware to clean up.
This is the moment you sent said boyfriend to the store to get more plates – you don’t care if they are plastics from Tesco or some kind of fancy porcelain from Harrods, you start scrubbing the floor and you sit down for a bit of a think.
What if you would suddenly, quite accidentally, contract flu. That Mexican flu thing. H1N1 – or hini as a friend called it. You would have to stay in bed, not get into contact with other people besides your boyfriend (who will call you to ask where the hell he is supposed to get plates from) and nobody would care if you’d get a Chinese.
Then your mother calls to ask if she is supposed to bring your father’s favourite tipple and had you seen the crackers at Marks and Sparks? Three for two now and should she get you some. Totally numb you agree to that and you start peeling potatoes for mash, so many you think you are feeding the Middlesex Regiment.
You have everything prepared and you spend Christmas Eve hoovering, dusting, cleaning and clearing up. The tree is already losing needles and two baubles have shattered on the floor so far. Your next door neighbours are having a party and you hear the not-so-soothing sounds of this year’s Christmas number one, Slade and Mud. You decide that you are having a prick and ping mac and cheese (Pomona could feel her eyebrows knit together, what was the girl on about? Prick and ping?) and go to bed early, sure that tomorrow won’t be half as bad as you are anticipating.
Your alarm goes at six, you jump out of bed, not feeling as chipper as that might make you sound and you go downstairs to check on the turkey.
Damn thing is still frozen solid.
You open the tap and let cold water run over it for about an hour, while you get ready making the stuffing, peeling parsnips and try to find that one Christmas cd you have lingering around somewhere.
The turkey is as good as defrosted. You take the print-out of the Delia Smith method your best friend gave you and follow all the instructions to the letter. Of course it turns out you do not have one or two of the ingredients, so you wing it - or if you are even more stressed, you break down in a hysterical weeping match and then get on with it - and manage to get the whole thing in your tiny oven, without the bacon touching the iron bar that will heat the whole thing up.
Now comes the time for relaxation. Or at least, in theory. You get to take a bath and get dressed. Oh this is only theory and we all know it. You have been fiddling with faulty lids, you have worked your way around breakfast, having a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, both half drunk and eaten, forgotten in a corner of the kitchen now and you and Mister I-don’t-know-where-to-buy-things-that-are-not-Xbox-games (Xbox games? I bet that has something to do with those comp... comp... comp-something or other) have not even opened presents.
So the long, luxurious bath turns into a hurried shower, you jump into that pair of office trousers, pull that jumper your grandmother knitted you in 1992 over your head - it is a bit tight in certain places that were not quite as well developed as they are now, pull a comb through your mop and smear some eyeshadow and mascara on designated places, grab socks from your drawer (a green one and a purple one, but you can't be bothered) and you race back to your turkey to start the sacred basting.
You are wearing an apron your sister once gave your for Christmas and this is the moment the front door bell rings and your parents are in the hall, since they decided to come early: because it is Christmas.
Your mother - either meaning well or trying to get you ready for the loony bin - proposes to lend a hand and starts making bread sauce, even though no-one likes it and asks for a gravy boat, which you do not have, at which point she starts to pick a fight over how young women these days do not make an effort in any household chores. In the back of your mind you seem to recall the same speech, but coming from your grandmother directed straight at your mother, who seems to have memorised it word for word.
You just nod and get on with the mashing and basting. More bells ring, your mother goes out into the living room where she bestows love upon her grandchildren (your sisters spoiled brats, you got them a frisbee and a pogo stick as presents, the thought of which makes your evil laughter explode into the brussel sprouts) and you can hear your boyfriend talking to your father and offering drinks all around.
Of course you don’t get any, since you are in the kitchen. Strange, because you are the one person there who could really use a drink!
Then the alarm goes and everything is supposed to be ready. You check the bird. It still has to go for at least another ten minutes. You go into the room, where the children are glaring at the presents and your brother in law is already on his third Scotch. You help yourself to a generous G&T, sit down and for all of seven minutes you feel really quite Christmassy.
After checking again, you take the bird from the oven, let it rest on the chopping board, while you try to transform the cooking juices into a lovely, rich gravy. Of course yours is lumpy and you resort to a blessing from Tesco’s: instant gravy that goes into the microwave. No-one sets foot in the kitchen now anyway and you check the seasoning in your mash, you prod the parsnips and carrots. The sprouts are looking sufficiently miserable, so you are ready to eat.
With help from your father and boyfriend you dish the whole thing up. You pull crackers, don’t laugh at the jokes, put on the silly hat and in about half an hour, everybody is full up and the opening of presents can begin. You have said: “Leave some room for pudding and brandy butter!” But nobody will have taken notice of that, so you are left with a foul tasting christmas pud you had purchased at Asda. the wrapping is torn off presents, everybody lies about how happy they are with their gifts and if you are lucky, everybody buggers off before tea.
The house looks like a warzone.
There is still half a turkey left.
The breadsauce has gone all funny and there is stuffing under the christmas tree. There are needles in the jug where the gravy used to be and one of the candles has set fire to part of the paper tablecloth with dancing snowmen and a Santa with red nose.
You don’t even bother with stacking the dishwasher.
You just crash on the couch. There is no-one left to save Christmas but Julie Andrews.
The familiar tones of all too familiar songs grace the cables, your boyfriend makes you hot chocolate and sneaks in some rum, sets down a plate of chocolate orange segments and biscuits.
Finally.
It’s Christmas.”
Pomona put down the magazine. She felt connected with the writer. Not because she would be so stressed for Christmas, Merlin no, she had a schedule and there was nothing that could go horribly wrong - unless her wand would break - but because in the end, they shared that same feeling that was Christmas.
Cuddling on the couch.
Because that is what Christmas is all about: sharing it with your loved ones, in a way that would make you happy. In Pomona’s case that would be close to Filius and listening to the wireless, drink hot chocolate or mulled wine and eating chocolates.
It was at that precise moment that the front door opened and Filius stepped inside. He was carrying presents.
“Merry Christmas.” he said as he was being enveloped by Pomona.
“Merry Christmas.” she answered.
They did not make it to the couch that Christmas Eve, but there were plenty of cuddles to be had...
