#nox.event010

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE :  

ACROSS BRITAIN, MONTHLONG   :   even outside of HOGWARTS ( where the holiday feast is rumored to be bigger than ever ), the wixen world takes the holiday season extremely seriously.

hogsmeade stores slash their prices for tourists & visiting students alike to snatch up a bargain and take the financial strain out of purchasing christmas presents, and no one goes home without grabbing a cup ( or four ) of hot butterbeer from the three broomsticks. the tree at the centre of the little town starts the month bare, but if you drop a sickle into the donation box at its base, you’re handed a tiny slip of parchment and encouraged to write something across it : a wish for the upcoming year, perhaps, or your happiest memory from the year past. the attending wix will give it a tap once you’ve finished and your parchment will fold itself into a neat origami creation, floating up to a place in the bough of the tree. by the end of the month, it’s often weighed down with these little parchment scraps - and parents often tell their children that if they scrawl a wish, it’ll almost assuredly come TRUE. 

diagon alley is best known for its winter festival which takes over the street for the entire month. prices are hiked in the larger stores here ( go figure ), but luckily enough for anyone who doesn’t want to make the trek to hogsmeade, there is NO shortage of stalls along the street this time of year, selling everything you can think of - magical candles that’ll only ever smell like your favorite scent, gingerbread snacks in the shape of a number of different creatures, toy broomsticks, wooden nutcrackers that sing a little tune, hot butterbeer that doesn’t quite match madam rosmerta’s blend, you name it, it’s there ! there’s games, too, of course - snowball tosses, save the penguin stuck on an iceberg, a one time only snowman building competition on the sixteenth - though you’ll have to travel out to hogsmeade to ice skate if that’s your favorite holiday festivity. the leaky cauldron does a christmas dinner for the elderly and in need every single year, and usually, diagon alley feels more homely & KINDLY than ever at this time. 

given the recent werewolf attack, there’s a rather somber air attached to it all - but a number of wix worked non-stop throughout november to ensure that the damaged stores ( including weasley’s wizard wheezes ) were all fixed up in time to be decorated. a plaque remembering the individuals who were killed was unveiled on the same evening that the christmas lights were turned on - a HUGE event in itself that families will turn out in entirety to watch, and that always coincides with the lights turning on in hogsmeade, godric’s hollow & a number of other wix / muggle settlements across the uk. 

MALFOY MANOR, DECEMBER 24TH   :   the malfoy family christmas party is held annually on december 24th and in spite of the ‘midnight’ end, often runs well into the early morning. invites are sent out by owl on the first of the month, first to a number of influential families and then to, well... whoever’s left. all of the stops are usually pulled out - the manor is decorated to within an inch of its life ( with a christmas tree in every room open to the public ), the music is live and usually performed by someone who sounds wholly unlikely but certainly isn’t if you have enough money to throw at them, the food is prepared by the finest of chefs & there’s often so much expensive alcohol left at the open bars at the end of the night that the malfoy’s usually send people home with a bottle or two. the hosts are gracious and require nothing of ANYONE for entry other than the formal attire asked for and, if able, a small donation to the peacock academy, an institute for magical children overseas ( a well known for profit founded by abraxas malfoy and still, somehow, in the family ). 

there’s always a theme for this sort of thing, and this year it’s a masquerade. masks are mandatory along with black tie, but don’t worry if you weren’t lucky enough to receive a handwritten invite - the malfoy’s don’t keep a guest list and usually end up with far more individuals attending than they pretend they planned for... though of course, it’s usually just another way to flex their wealth & importance, even after the war. 

OUT OF CHARACTER :

we know that wix tend to go all out for their holiday season, so of course, december wouldn’t have been complete without some festivities to involve yourselves in and incorporate into threads ! the winter festival of diagon alley & the hogsmeade specific celebrations are monthlong, and any part of them can be used as potential settings for threads. given how quiet the month tends to be, having a setting moreso than an event was important ! 

the malfoy family christmas party - this year a masquerade ball hosted at the manor - is arguably the most ‘event like’ part of this whole thing, and everyone is encouraged to attend, even if you don’t initially imagine them receiving an invite ! gatecrashers aren’t really considered to be... gatecrashing, and as long as their requests of attendees are abided by, the malfoy’s never kick a fuss. just remember several rooms are off limits to the public ! 

much like mystery month itself, this event - most of which can be classed as a ‘setting’ rather than a standalone thing - will last the rest of december and should be considered ongoing until january first. the malfoy family christmas party, specifically, will officially begin on december 17th and run for two weeks. the start will be announced on the main and in the discord ! 

you are not under any obligation to pause any threads you currently have going, though we’ll likely take a vote on the sixteenth to decide whether people want threads to be paused for the party - it’ll be up to the masses ! 

event related starters ( including private ones ) should be tagged as nox.event010, and while the location for the masquerade will be ‘malfoy manor’, you have total freedom regarding every other possible starter you could post ! if you’re posting your outfits to the dash & not the discord channel, please tag them with nox.masquerade so we can see them !