{"id":1899,"date":"2023-12-14T20:22:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T20:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2023-12-14T20:22:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T20:22:40","slug":"the-christmas-eve-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-christmas-eve-party\/1899\/","title":{"rendered":"The Christmas Eve Party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It had<\/em> been very kind of him to take us in during a raging snowstorm on Christmas Eve, but I wish Joel would shut up about it. We\u2019d been travelling along the edges of Bia\u0142owie\u017ca Forest, trying desperately to get home to see family, when the car had broken down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no mobile signal, of course, so we\u2019d sat in the car, after the inevitable argument, shivering. Then, like the light of the Angel Gabriel, twin beams of a 4×4 had sliced through the blizzard, and Joel had been out in the road, waving his arms, trying to get a lift. Fortunately, the driver had stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

She couldn\u2019t drive us home but was willing to take us to the event she was attending and was sure the host wouldn\u2019t mind us making a phone call. We hefted our bags into the trunk, then thirty minutes later we were before an immense gothic mansion deep in the woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The host greeted our saviour warmly, insisting we enter after hearing of our plight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis Lordship,\u201d said a butler, who\u2019d appeared from nowhere, \u201cinsists you stay the night. He won\u2019t see travellers lost without offering hospitality. A room has been prepared, follow me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bedroom was… well, incredible. A four-poster bed, priceless antiques, and ancestral paintings adorning the walls. Our luggage was already there, and two changes of clothes had been laid out; a tail suit for Joel along with clean pyjamas, and the most beautiful ballgown for me with, now I come to think of it, a worryingly diaphanous nightie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can join the other attendees in say, fifteen minutes\u2019 time? The theme is anagrams, but naturally you are excused from that, given that you arrived unexpectedly. I shall return for you shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the evening passed in a blur of conversation, food, laughter, and fine brandy. Our host reappeared dressed as Santa and handed gifts to the children just before eleven. Once they\u2018d retired to bed, all flurries of excitement and chatter, the other guests had almost seemed to fade into the walls as our host turned his attention to us, his dazzling grin almost bewitching. I\u2019m not sure how, but we found ourselves in a room with a roaring fire in the grate, three wingback chairs arranged around it, and a fine crystal decanter with three glasses alongside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really no trouble,\u201d our host repeated, as Joel expressed his thanks again, and gave us a lopsided grin. \u201cI\u2019m so glad your misfortune allowed you to join our little linguistically amusing soiree tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if it was the heat, the alcohol, or maybe his easy way with words, but something twinged in the back of my mind, and a sense of uneasiness started to creep over me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really should go to bed,\u201d I interjected. \u201cThank you again, we\u2019ll be out of here first thing.\u201d \u201cOh no,\u201d he smiled, horns extruding from his skull and a bladed trident appearing in his right hand. \u201cYou\u2019ll never leave.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bedroom was… well, incredible. A four-poster bed, priceless antiques, and ancestral paintings adorning the walls. Our luggage was already there, and two changes of clothes had been laid out; a tail suit for Joel along with clean pyjamas, and the most beautiful ballgown for me with, now I come to think of it, a worryingly diaphanous nightie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[695,1077],"tags":[1113,643,114,102,1112,991,95,288,946,1111,103,876,1114,672,11],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-dec-2023-misfortune","tag-along","tag-been","tag-but","tag-christmas","tag-eve","tag-get","tag-had","tag-home","tag-host","tag-joel","tag-our","tag-take","tag-trying","tag-us","tag-was"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-uD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1901,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}