Saturday, December 11, 2010

Victorian Wizarding Christmas

This is my entry for the HP blog fest

One would think that Christmas is not a joyous happening in a purist families, but then one would be wrong. We all have our vices and virtues, and so also the pureblood families.

Misapinoa loved Christmas, and all the traditions involved. She happily adopted any tradition, and so also the mugglers' German traditions. She had been 4 years old when Prince Albert introduced the Christmas Tree in England, and now, after having been married to Jimbo for 10 years, and having given birth to a little witch and two small wizards, the Christmas Tree had become part of their traditions too.

Misapinoa and Jimbo had decorated the tree in the living room for themselves, with certain help from the house elves, of course, and the nanny had kept the children busy in the nursery during this time. Then they ate the Christmas dinner in the dining room, before letting the children in to the decorated living room.

How the children's eyes shone as they saw the tall tree covered with sparkling stars and glass ornaments, tinsel and candles, and all sorts of edibles, like gingerbread men and paper cones filled with nuts and candy. Under the tree was a pile of lovely things, toys and mysterious packages.

The eldest, Miram, was by the power of his 8 years, used to this and knew what to do, but 5 years old Jimsina and 2 years old Soames weren't quite certain yet. Miram ran to the tree immediately and started playing with the toy set built to go round the tree through small landscape with real snow falling and miniature people and animals moving about.

"Go ahead, dear", said Misapinoa gently to Jimsina, who went then to find a big, beautiful doll, that looked just like her. The doll blinked and smiled.
"Is this to me?" she asked.
"Yes, darling", her father answered, smiling. He caught Soames just before he was about to step on the rails, and sat down on the floor giving Soames a toy dragon with smoke coming from its nostrils and eyes flashing. Soames peeped happily and hugged the toy, that growled softly, then he got interested in Miram's toy train.

There were many other parcels and toys for the children, a few for the parents, and even some for the house elves. All the elves got a new, clean pillowcase, with their initials embroidered on them, and there was a lace incert on the girls' pillowcases. Jimbo gave Misapinoa a new set of jewels, beautiful emerald earrings and necklace, that would go beautifully with her green eyes, and Misapinoa gave her husband a new seafoam pipe carved in the shape of a dragon.

After the gifts were shared, the Blishwicks danced around the Christmas tree singing carols and then Misapinoa gathered the children in front of the table theatre and Jimbo acted with paper dolls a Yuletime story to entertain the family. It was always the same, Jimbo only knew one story, but it had become a tradition. The children watched the beautifully decorated dolls move on the tiny paper scene and forgot it was their father telling the story. Soames fell to sleep sucking a huge chunk of toffee in Misapinoa's lap, and even the elder children started nodding. When Jimbo looked up from behind the theatre, he saw all three kids sleeping around his lovely wife, whose green eyes shone brighter than the emeralds on her neck and ears.

12 comments:

Hart Johnson said...

Oh what a lovely little Christmas scene! I love the magical toys--the dragon is fabulous and I want one! Very nice!

erica and christy said...

I don't know enough about HP (gasp, I know) to know any of these characters, but I do love the sentiment. And the fact that Jimbo only knows one story is funny!
erica

Editor Cassandra said...

Were these Harry's grandparents or something? I don't recognize any of the names...

Cute story though!

Melissa said...

The toys are AWESOME! You have an awesome imagination

N. R. Williams said...

Nice job. I love the toys and the fact that pure bloods adopted a muggle tradition.
Nancy
N. R. Williams, fantasy author

Michael Di Gesu said...

Ketutar,

This was nicely written and the descriptions are full of life. However, I think you missed the point. There is no HP character in the story.

The magic it there and as Hart, Erica, and Melissa pointed out, you have some wonderful details.

Thank you so much for sharing your entry with us. All the unique stories are really adding to the excitement of this blogfest.

Michael

Brenda Drake said...

Though I haven't heard of these HP characters before, I did enjoy this well written story. Love the magical toys! Sweet! :D

Ketutar said...

Misapinoa Black and Jimbo Blishwick "appears only on the version of the Black family tree tapestry shown in HP and the Order of the Phoenix movie"

She might have been Sirius Black's Great Aunt.

Henric C. Jensen said...

"There is no HP character in the story."

Gideon - I think you need to read more - and check out HP Fansites, such as this Ketutar has not misunderstood one bit. You have. So perhaps you ought to say sorry to Ket for pissing in her porridge?

Henric C. Jensen said...

Now that I got that off my chest I have to comment on the story :D

I love it! I love the DRAGON - I want one. Yes, this story would definitely fit in a collection of X-mas short stories. A collection that I would pick out at X-max/Yule/Chanukah and read just for the pleasure of seeing those verbal images. Well done, well done!

Renee Silvana said...

Interesting twist on a Harry Potter Christmas story! Extra cool points for using Black's family tree!

Unknown said...

A sweet, serene scene (but oh, the sadness yet to come for the Black family!).

Cyndi