#candlestickshipping

Steven discovers, first of all, that he misses the pleasure of blowing off meetings. Secondly, he discovers that spelunking for days at a time without warning garners no objections from his colleagues.

Especially of his rocks and his pens

Steven definitely adheres to the tradition of new clothes every new year :)) he probably doesn’t wear the traditional prosperous colours but definitely leans towards shades of dark blue/forest green for his suit (no grey/black bc bad luck!!) but he does wear a nice red tie/cravat! On a year that he’s feeling extra festive, he wears patterns!

His dad’s side of the family is small, so it’s mostly his mum’s side that come to visit. His mum’s family is definitively less well off so reunion dinner is always held at the Stone mansion.

Steven’s cousin used to be pretty decent but grew up alongside the golden boy with the silver hair so has a chip on his shoulder, he’s always trying to one-up him by showing off his wife and his new glittery watch, or that his child’s in Oxford’s kindergarten programme, the rest of his cousins are just kinda /there/, most are just showing up as an obligation lol and waiting for those big red packets from daddy stone’s pocket

His aunties are no better are is always trying to be nosy like “when are you getting a partner, oh you haven’t taken over Devon yet hmmm, did you lose/gain weight this year” or are boasting abt their kids

Honestly Joseph and Steven hate it but to honour Mum’s memory (named Sharon in my hc) they still have them around every year

Steven’s favourite part is to play with his nieces and nephews because even though they remind him of his youth playing with his cousin before he got obsessed with being better than him

But but his relationship with his cousin improves when he finally gets an s/o because they give the cousin a firm talking to the first time they come round, cos cousin makes a snarky comment abt him and s/o straight up is like “why are you saying such mean things abt him? Are you jealous of him? Lny is about the family gathering again after a long year, he’s travelled a long way to see you and the rest of the family at his dad’s home and he always looks forward to catching up with you, please respect him as much as he respects you” and cousin is like damn… my bad