Work Text:
Conceptualization
It was Cornelia’s idea.
It was during the thick of the unpacking stage late in the spring, where the temperature was dancing on the warmer side, and the boxes, bodies, and stress of settling into a new place resulting in a thick layer of sluggish haze throughout their new flat.
She was helping them fold up cardboard and hang up frames, basking in each other’s comfortable silence when Dan lets out an exasperated sound. “What wouldn’t I give to just fast forward through all this crap and have a normal house again.”
She chuckled and replied, “to be honest, I’m just really looking forward to the Christmas party.”
Both Phil and Dan let out surprised laughs. “What are you on about?”
She stares at them. “Your Christmas party this year.” When all they do is stare back, her eyes widen. “Surely you’ll have Christmas party, right? This place is too beautiful not to host fancy gatherings like that!” She motions to the glass wall, the high ceilings.
“That’s so far away though! It’s such a you thing to think about that at a time like this,” Phil smiles.
“Mate, I’m just looking at the big picture here. Your choice, obviously, but I can see it now: this place decorated, festive to the max, a proper adult Christmas party, wine and people and music and all that. It’ll be great housewarming thing, you know?”
Phil looks at Dan, now focusing on cutting open another box. The hesitation in eye contact is all he needed to know he wanted to do it.
He smiled at the thought, let himself feel excited for this idealized vision, and stored it away for later.
Invitations
They debated between a facebook event, group chats, and proper evites for days. Phil at one point even suggests sending out physical envelopes to each guest, like a Hogwarts school letter. After Dan thoroughly debunks it through explaining the excruciating process that idea would entail, Phil frowns and half-jokingly suggests they just let the word spread and invite everyone they know in their life.
And so they did. Set of December 22nd, the day before they both go off to their families.
Dan insists on calling it a holiday party. So much so that he corrects every single person that calls it otherwise--this, to his dismay, applies mostly to Phil.
“Sorry, sorry, we’ve always called it a Christmas party.”
“Yes, and now we’re calling it a holiday party. I’m pretty sure a good chunk of the guests don’t celebrate Christmas, actually.”
“What, just because Peej says he’s bringing his friend named Velvel?”
“It’s a valid assumption, Phil!”
Music
It becomes a horrendous hodge-podge of classic Christmas albums at Phil’s insistence, ambient R&B at Dan’s, and the Daily Mix 3 90’s pop playlist somehow got thrown into the mix.
Execution
It goes really, really well.
Friends congratulate them on their new place, admire new pieces of furniture, and tell them repeatedly how good all this is. How happy they both seem.
They operationalize a tactic of division for that night. Whereas their natural instinct with parties--or for anything, for that matter--was to huddle close as a unit, usually finding a corner with snacks, they agreed to try the opposite for their own party. They separate and socialize, smiling and sipping and swaying slightly to the music. They catch each other’s eye every once in a while, a quick update communicated with nothing but a nod of the head, a tiny quirk of a smile.
You doing good?
She didn’t ask you weird questions like she did last time, did she?
Christ, You and Jase were talking forever.
They open bottles of wine (and bottles of not-wine) two hours in.
After four hours in, someone suggests charades.
Four and a half, Dan yells so loudly trying to guess what film Sophie is trying to act out, as she flails her arms and makes crying facial expressions:
“Ghostbusters!”
“Ghostbusters 2!”
“Jesus Christ, I have no idea what you’re doing, try something el---wait, Matilda! Annie!”
Dan laughed so hard that tears flowed down his eyes when Sophie reveals she was trying to act out Schindler's List.
Shortly after, Phil falls down trying to recreate the dance lift from Dirty Dancing by himself.
“Charlie’s Angels!”
“Footloose!’
“Ghostbusters 2!”
Six hours in, guests start to thin out. Dan’s face becomes a muted shade of pink.
Seven and a half, they wave goodbye to Martyn and Cornelia, the last of their guests, and shut the door.
Clean-up
They didn’t.
The last step is purely optional when a happy haze surrounds the entire flat, a place that feels the fullest when two people remain after everyone else has left.
Clean-up is for the morning, when the La La Land soundtrack isn’t playing in the background and it feels almost ethereal to look at your house. All covered in fairy lights and presents, magnified through the filter of this haze, this blooming heat in their chests as they slow danced barefoot on their hardwood floor, celebrating something only they really understood. Snug, and sticky, and kind.
That’s probably why it’s called a house warming.