Santa Claus is coming to town

[afallenstar]

Who: Secret Santa participants, but also EVERYONE!
Where: Town Hall
When: Evening of day 24
What: Present giving! The Secret Santa reveal, and anyone who wants to have a christmas party is welcome to join too!
Notess: Party style thread guys, so go nuts. No order, everything is chaos, tag to your hearts content, feel free to break off into separate threads, and no spiking the punch! Also I think she's sort of mentioned it to a bunch of people but want to do me some lovely favours and handwave the actual name drawing? I will backtag if people want but it seems a little pointless to thread that out.


There's another message on the network that morning from Anna, just audio again. It's about as garbled as her first one regarding the Secret Santa idea, but for anyone who is listening closely enough they'll make out a few details. Namely this evening, town hall, and bring your presents before she shuts it off.

She's spent the rest of the day trying to do what she can to make the place look nicer. She's hardly got Christmas decorations on tap, but she's done what she can with what she has all the same. There's paper snow flakes up around the place, some of the food from her house placed in bowls to make it more party-appropriate, and it's no fir but she has relocated a small tree from the edge of the woods and placed it in the hall. Barely decorated, not even the right kind of tree, it's the best she can do with the resources she's been given.

Now all there is to do is wait for people to come.

Comments

Bruce Banner

[greenisnteasy]

[Bruce has a card, repurposed from what he found in a semi hoarder's drawer, and a small toy or ornament for everyone. In the card he says he got you free medical care. We can thread that out or handwave!]

Re: Bruce Banner

[pursuitofcappiness]

[ Steve hands Bruce a small parcel. It says: "To Doc Banner from Cap." ]

Bruce Banner

[agentx13]

[ Sharon has left a box on his doorstep with his name on it. Inside? A pair of the largest purple pants she could find. Extra-stretchy. ]

[manofiron]

Tony can’t help thinking that this whole Christmas party idea would be a lot more entertaining if he could actually see what the hell was going on. He can’t. And he thinks that he probably shouldn’t even be here, since it’s incredibly difficult to pretend there’s nothing wrong with him when it’s so obvious that he is. But everyone else is here and he thinks that there’s something pathetically depressing about sitting home along in the dark while everyone else was out having fun.

It isn’t terribly difficult to locate Bruce. All he has to do is listen for the sound of his voice and follow it. Carefully, of course, so as not to run into anyone.

He just has to hope he’s actually facing him when he says, “Bruce? Please tell me that you’re here and I’m not talking to a potted plant right now.”

NOT FUTURE SCIENCE!SON-IN-LAW

[goodluckkobra]

[Kobra's got a cigarette. He's only found a few packs around town, but it's a fuckin' holiday. He takes a pull and leans on a table next to Bruce.]

What's up, Doc?

Just party, because guess who's not involved in Secret Santa

[hung_garian]

[So maybe on the scale of Christmas spirit from Scrooge to Santa, Gabriel's somewhere between the Grinch and Oscar the Grouch, but he is awful fond of parties. In the hopes that it won't get his ass kicked by his darling little sister, he's also brought along a bottle of something with enough alcohol to drop a whole AA meeting and enough sugar to give Willy Wonka toothache. He's currently sipping some out of a cocktail glass with a little umbrella. Never let him be accused of misusing the power invested in him by God.]

[happytobleed]

Castiel wrinkles his nose at the drink Gabriel has. He still remembers the hangover he'd gotten from drinking heavily and he can't understand why anyone does that to themselves. That Dean does is still one of the bigger Dean-related mysteries.

"It was nice of Anna to do this."

Anna is unimpressed by your lack of Christmas spirit

[afallenstar]

Gabriel's arrival is the perfect opportunity to duck off and leave him his own present. No one should notice that she's missing for a couple of minutes as she steps out of the hall into the empty corridor, and it's not long before she walks back out again.

With that over and done with, she's happy to approach him with an easy smile, taking said glass out of his hand quickly to steal a sip before she falls into place at his side. "Thought you weren't one for Christmas spirit, huh?"

lotsa touching happening here so feel free to veto anything, like 4 srs

[gloryisbullshit]

So he has all this confidence, because he's lightly soaked in tequila and in a public place. Only Party Poison himself has the audacity to be a total prick in a public place! So he's definitely got the jump on this trickster jackass this time around. It's what gives him the confidence to saunter up next to Gabriel, stick a hand in the liar's back pocket, and make a nonchalant grab at that little umbrella.

[manofiron]

Not the sort of person to draw attention to illnesses and injuries, Tony tries to be as inconspicuous about his blindness as possible. To facilitate the illusion that nothing’s wrong, he parks himself in one place as soon as he arrives, casually leaning against the wall as though he’s just too cool to go find a seat. There’s a large cloth bag resting at his feet, filled with the gifts he spent the last few days scrounging together, and a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose. It’s not the first time he’s worn sunglasses inside; back in the 90s, he used to do it a lot.

He’s been to so many public functions that he knows how to act like he’s paying attention, even if he can’t. He turns his head in the direction of particularly loud sounds. He feigns looking around periodically, as though he’s scanning the crowd. But he can’t see and try though he might to ignore it, it is making him edgy.

Just not edgy enough to admit defeat and go home. Not when there’s a party going on.

[theshield_agent]

Phil rolls his eyes a little when he's sees the sunglasses. Sometimes he has a hard time reconciling the person he's pretty sure is in there with the one Tony likes to broadcast outwardly. He can never really tell where the line is. He's heard Pepper's take on it, but he thinks she might be a little too optimistic about the whole thing.

He comes and leans against the wall next to Tony, footsteps a practiced quiet that just comes naturally to the way he walks now.

"Stark." He smiles, amusement obvious in his voice. "I know this party is a little small for you, but are you still having fun?"

[pursuitofcappiness]

Steve taps Tony on the shoulder to get his attention and slips something into his hand. It's a big red scarf and he tried to make a pattern to have litle yellow iron man helmets at the end but since he only had two colors, they ended up looking like nonexistent vintage iron man helms.

Not that Tony can see anyway.

The Party Don't Start Without Castiel

[happytobleed]

Castiel is wearing a bright scarf that seems to have come out of nowhere. He has a small, poorly-wrapped parcel with Kenzi's name on it, but is otherwise empty-handed.

He seems distracted as he looks around the room. He's looking for Anna.

[afallenstar]

Anna had a pile of personal gifts on the table she's hovering next to, so when she sees Castiel she quickly grabs the perfectly wrapped parcel with his name scrawled on - which in contrast to the neat wrapping is surprisingly messy. Heading over, she fixes on a bright smile as she approaches him. After all it's been designated that today is Christmas, so personal feelings aside she wants to wish him a good day.

"Cas," she waves as she approaches, thrusting the package forward towards him unceremoniously, "I'm glad you came."

Have a Kobra Kristmas!

[goodluckkobra]

Present delivered anonymously earlier, Kobra's just ready for a party. He's found a bottle of champagne in the new house he'd moved into with Ghoul and Party and he brought that, even though he doesn't want anything to drink, himself.

He's grinning around at everyone. Christmas always reminds him of his family. It's a little sad, but he's glad to see that everyone can manage to come together like this and find a little happiness together.

[preytosociety]

Lydia approaches Kobra mostly out of habit. She's seen less of him since he moved out of the house, but honestly she really hasn't minded. Well, she did at first. Really did. Actually, she only stopped minding a little while ago. Around the time the snow started to fall and she opened that box with the hideous scarf inside. Stiles was still there. Daneel, too, but ... Stiles.

Speaking of the buzz-cut-wearing little freak, where the hell is he? She nudges Kobra with her elbow as she scans the room. "Have you seen Stiles anywhere? I thought he'd be here."

[afallenstar]

Anna's good at overseeing, which is why she mostly keeps to the sidelines when people start to arrive. She's got a small collection of gifts, all neatly wrapped in whatever makeshift paper she could find, and she waits for the various people receiving them to arrive as she keeps an eye on things.

People look happy, and it's nice. It's enough to give her a reason to pretend again, and that's all she really wants these days. A way to feel human again. It might be Christmas out there in the real world, it might not be, but it sure feels like it right now.

[pursuitofcappiness]

Steve waves hello to Anna and brings himself over, mouthing "Merry Christmas" to her and handing her a package. He's wrapped it in burlap from an old potato sack and carved a wooden stamp out of a branch to dot the fabric with painted flowers.

He's tied it up with braided twine. Inside is a pair of earmuffs he made out of an old plastic jar, batting from various unused children's toys, and covered in knit and yes, yes he knit all his gifts. The earmuffs are blue and the insides lined with the feet of an ancient teddy bear he found in the attic.

[agentx13]

Sharon has shown up wearing, of all things, a dress. Sure, she has leggings underneath, and sure as hell she has knives and a gun strapped to her thighs underneath, but she's also put effort into her appearance today. She's even curled her hair, worn a bit of makeup, and worn heels. Ostensibly, it's because this is a party. Something for fun, and she's joining in.

Of course, it had been easier in theory. For now, she's hanging back, surveying the crowd. She should have remembered that she was better at surveying than partaking.

[pursuitofcappiness]

Steve walks up to her with something he's made a little paper bag for and stuffed with various plastic bags cut in chiffonade to look like tissue paper. He's drawn on the bag and cut it out to resemble a litle window, used whiteout to depict some snow.

Inside are a pair of gloves he's made out of a very soft knit scarf he found that must have once been a gift that someone's wife forgot about. They're ivory and tight with an intricate cable-knit pattern.

[pursuitofcappiness]

Steve brought a few trinkets to decorate the hall with, since he didn't think there would be very many. He's pleasantly surprised to find lots of paper snowflakes already up, but he places his gifts down underneath the tree for a moment and takes out a few things he's tied thread to in order to make ornaments. In place of baubles, he's cut tiny little paper lanterns to hang. They're the wrong color, but they still look pretty festive.

[gloryisbullshit]

Happy pseudo-Christmas; for his efforts at festivity, Steve gets a bottle-ginger popping up on tiptoes to point out snidely in his ear: "Those're the wrong color."

Galen Howard

[gleans]

After anonymously delivering his present (he really doesn't want to have to explain the garden gnome), Galen is at the party and actually looking a little cleaned up. He's put his contact lenses to use, anyway, and the bruise on his cheek is starting to fade. Things are looking up.

It's strange, how almost-normal this is, for a place he's stuck in until further notice. But this is healthy, he thinks; something nice, something fun, to keep them all from going crazy. Just as long as nobody punches him again.

He's standing by the tree, right now, looking over a certain red notebook he'd mentioned a few days ago. He'd found it sitting under the tree with no note and no indication of who had it, everything inside accounted for, nothing changed. Weird. Flipping through the marked up pages, he sips his drink and glances up to see who else is arriving.

Re: Galen Howard

[onteamdyson]

Nobody's going to punch him on Kenzi's watch. Unfortunately, she can't be watching all the time, but she's watching now! Funny how that notebook just showed up out of nowhere. She hurries over to his side, grabbing onto his shirt near his ribs like she's scared she'll lose him in an airport or something.

"That little shit! How much you wanna bet he was lying and had it the whole time?" She grins at him, adjusting the strap of the bag over her shoulder. Who else would it have been?

"Hey. I got something for you. From Dean." Who was missing. Not at the bar as per usual. Weird. She might have swiped it.

Kenzi

[onteamdyson]

Where the crap is Donna?! Kenzi is way the hell too excited to give her this present in person so she can see the look on her adorable face. Phil has no idea how instrumental he is in this entire gift-giving occasion, but he is pretty fucking instrumental. The festive, hand-decorated paper bag in her arms is the perfect cover up for the real present. The duffle bag over her shoulder is full of random stuff for her friends, too.

This is going to freakin' rock.

[gloryisbullshit]

He sees you have a festive, hand-decorated paper bag there! Party scuttles in close to Kenzi's side, hands weaseling in front of her to snatch the bag away and hold it up to his forehead. "A monk, a chunk, and a skunk!"

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel has a present labelled for Peggy, wrapped nicely in plain paper. It contains a sweater -- large, soft, warm, comfortable, but probably a man's and probably not very fashionable by any standards that he knows of -- but the only standards he knows are those of the 38th century. Still, he found it, and even if it's questionable it is, he thinks, a good and practical gift.

He's never had to give anyone a gift before. Nor has he attended a party as a guest rather than as staff.

But he can't see Peggy. For now, he sets it down on a nearby table.

[pursuitofcappiness]

Steve walks over to Daneel and waves to indicate his presence, since he can't talk.

He hands the robot a small package, wrapped up in brown paper with snowflakes drawn on in silver sharpie. Inside is a hat that he knit. Not that he thinks robots need hats, but it's all in the holiday spirit. It is a pleasant forest green.

[reluctantsword]

It's been a while since Wallie went to a good party, and he slides in with a broad grin. He even left his sword behind tonight; Nnanji would have been horrified, but Nnanji's not here to see or comment.

He's keeping an eye out for Phil, for that guy who wondered if Wallie's swords were gang tattoos, which still makes him grin. Of all the people whose name he could have got. It had been a little while since he'd whittled, but he'd made a nice little set of fork, spoon, and knife, and tied them together with a bit of ribbon. There's a tag on them; he leaves it on a side table, since Phil seems busy chatting at the moment.

In the meantime, he helps himself to the food.

[gloryisbullshit]

There may be a tag on the cutlery set, but it's fairly obvious that Party Poison isn't much of a reader. He snaps the little bundle on his way over to Wallie, settles his hips against the table where the swordsman is getting a snack. "So, wouldja call these dishwasher safe, or...?"

Fun Ghoul

[tooghoulforschool]

So Ghoul may have been secretly excited for this whole secret Santa thing. Whatever. There is SNOW outside. Real snow. Even if everything around here is half-assed, it's better than anything he could have come up with back home.

He leaves his gift on the table. A book-shaped object, wrapped hastily with the name "The Outsider" scribbled on in black marker. The book-shaped object is in fact a book. A book of baby names he swiped from the library to be precise. There are also directions written on construction paper and folded up inside the front cover. If followed, they'll lead outside to a bunch of snow-covered patio furniture. Also part of the present, of course.

The best thing about all of this is the opportunity to wear the awesome, green sweater he found in their new house. It's not even an ironic statement, he just genuinely loves this fucking sweater, okay? Deal with it.

[gloryisbullshit]

"Where'd you find a sweater?!" Party Poison is completely scandalized, because not only does Fun Ghoul have a sweater, but it's also in fucking technicolor. Party had to physically alter all the shit he found. He enacts a clothing tax, coming up behind Ghoul and sticking his cold hands underneath that sweater to press into that warm belly, oh fuck yes.

THE VOICELOSENING

[gleans]

The voice in the back of his head telling him this is a bad idea doesn't really register until after he opens the box. He's relieved, for a moment, when he finds that his suspicions were wrong, and it's just a pair of ugly mittens inside -- but something feels different, and he's not sure what.

ANGEL OF CONCERN....is not concerned yet

[afallenstar]

She's looking for one of her presents to give someone when she sees Galen, and is he heads over with a smile to say hi. Things seem to be going well so far, she can suck away for a moment to say hello right?

"Galen!" She's all smiles and brightness, a pleasant contrast to her usual neutral-to-a-fault demeanour, "How are you?"

[solidrighthook]

It's not often that Peggy feels out of her depth, but well, this will just about do it. She's barely met most of the people in the room, and if it hadn't been for how pleased Steve seemed to be with the idea of Secret Santa she probably wouldn't have done it at all.

As it is she's got a wrapped gift in her hand, and she's ransacked the collection of female clothing in the attic for something a little more comfortable. The simple grey dress will do it, she's not exactly dressing to turn heads or anything, and in keeping with everyone's apparent festive spirit she's even gone to the effort of finding a red cardigan to go with it. If only Colonel Phillips could see her now.

Looking around the room as she walks in, she deposits her Secret Santa contribution under the tree before scanning the room for a familiar face.

[pursuitofcappiness]

Here's one. Steve turns around and-- well, it's no that red dress, but Peggy always manages to look astonishing. He smiles as if he's waking up, heads over to her and offers her a present wrapped in a lady's scarf. It's a rather heavy and slinky knit dress with three-quarter sleeves and cutoff shoulders. It's in a brilliant teal color, and he'd taken apart a few baby blankets and stayed up two nights to get every stitch in the right place.

He holds up a sign that says "Merry Christmas" in red and green.

Donna Noble

[noblexcompanion]

Donna is never one to say no to a party - especially a Christmas party. So what if the decorations are a little improvised - it's the thought that counts, right?

She just hopes the same can be said for the presents. After all, it's not like she could just pop down to Argos or somewhere and pick something out. She has a bag of carefully wrapped presents for her friends and of course, her secret Santa gift with it's tag neatly written - Anna (1.0). Now all she has to do is track her down!

[gleans]

Galen's wandering by with a cup of something clear in his hand and a self-stick ribbon bunch on the lapel of his jacket (provided by Kenzi) when he spots Donna standing alone and stops. Smiling, he moves his drink to his left hand and offers her his right.

"Hey, I'm Galen. Merry pseudo-Christmas."