TREE DECORATING PARTY

[goosemods]

TREE DECORATING PARTY

Bright and early in the morning, Outdoor Exploration and Equestrian Club have breakfast and pack up camp, so they can make it back in time for the annual Tree Decorating Party. Fir and pine trees are hitched to sleighs or the strongest horses, and the campers make good time through the forest, arriving back at school in the early afternoon.

At 6 PM, the whole school gathers in the huge, maze-like Gardens for the party. The winding paths have been swept free of snow, and the leafless trees and hedges have been dressed with magical lights. Dinner is set up on long tables in the courtyard at the center of the Gardens, and charmed lamps bathe the area with warmth, so students can enjoy an outdoor winter buffet featuring all kinds of holiday favourites. Vegan and kosher options are provided. Choir Club mounts the risers to sing carols for their classmates, and there's enthusiastic applause when Antonia Papadakis performs a stunning solo of Silent Night.

At 7 PM, tree decorating officially begins. The courtyard is the only safe area. At the north, east, south and west ends of the Gardens, four trees have been raised for the four houses. Scattered throughout the Gardens' maze-like paths are waterproof boxes containing various tree ornaments, and everyone is given the go-ahead to rush out and claim boxes for their house. Houses are allowed one hour to create the Best Christmas Tree in Gooseberry.

At 8 PM, the teachers will vote on a winning tree, and that house will be rewarded with bragging rights and a wizard cracker for every member of the house.

TREE DECORATING RULES

1. Anything goes for tree decorations, so long as no one gets hurt. Over the years, the "anything goes" rule has translated into students staging raids to steal ornaments from rival houses, but you are no longer allowed to destroy anything, after the calamitous Tree Decorating Party of 2008. (Mr. Elmasry could tell you stories, but he's afraid of giving you ideas.)


2. Prefects will be trusted to maintain order and judge what is or isn't an acceptable tree ornament. Staff is present in the courtyard, although ever since the disastrous Tree Decorating Party of 2010 when Ms. Rhee and Mr. Merrill got way too competitive, teachers are strictly forbidden from contributing or telling students what to do.


3. Anything that makes sense as a Christmas tree decoration can plausibly be found in the supply boxes, e.g. magical lights, tinsel of every colour, ornaments shaped like corgi dogs. With caveats: there won't be any electricity, and the boxes were filled by the teachers, so you're not going to find NSFW things either. However...


4. Students are permitted to bring or craft their own tree decorations. Please use your best judgment on what is actually practical for your character to bring to school with them.


5. Magical ladders are provided to help people reach the topmost branches of the trees. What does magical mean? It means ladders which are magically less likely to let you fall and break your neck. Please, children, don't die.


6. People who currently have detention will served it in the hours before dinner, so everyone can be present for Tree Decorating! The event isn't mandatory, but if you want an excuse for your character to take part, you can say their Head of House urged them to join.


7. How is the winner calculated? When a participating character posts to their house's tree, a mod will RNG a score between 1–50 for each character. A house’s score is the total score of all their participating members, and the highest house score wins. You have until Monday, December 12 at 11:59 PM MT to post to your house's tree and have your character be counted.

» Dinner: Everyone gathers in the garden courtyard for a delicious feast and a performance by Choir.

» South Tree: Ebonhide

» West Tree: Ribbonfin

» North Tree: Azurcrest

» East Tree: Coppertale

» Gardens: The winding paths of the Gardens create a maze, and boxes of Christmas ornaments have been hidden all over.

» Courtyard: In the center of the Gardens is the courtyard. During Tree Decorating, this is the only safe zone, i.e. no one can throw snowballs at you or steal your ornaments.

» OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

POINT TOTALS
EBONHIDE	RIBBONFIN	AZURCREST	COPPERTALE
516	547	468	521

Comments

NORTH TREE: AZURCREST

[goosemods]

Regan

[reehobbs.insanejournal.com]

Ree loves this party. Loves it. Of course, she's an Azurcrest and loves all parties, but this one involves the ~visual arts~ (more or less.) She spent part of her summer and free time thus far during the year making ornaments: some blue, (https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/00/c7/85/00c785b1d58b2b062bb241dffb386b66.jpg) lots bird (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/411868328406783670/) themed, (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/227150374935377807/) this but blue jays instead of cardinals, (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/63472675976592875/) even one lil clay guy (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/568227677959582094/) thrown in as an experiment. Some more random (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/234187249345026288/) as well! Basically, Ree is all in on this one and has been preparing since last year.

SCORE

[goosemods]

Regan rolls a perfect 50!

[nobletoo]

YES, REE!

RILEY MAE

[riledup]

Riley flits around like a caffeinated Christmas fairy. She's probably even wearing fairy wings because fuck it she feels like it. She claims all the sparkliest, flashiest, and most annoying Christmas ornaments, and she's, like, trailing glitter.

If anyone wants to heist ornaments from another tree, she is DOWN. Riley also thinks she's a lot sneakier than she actually is.

SCORE

[goosemods]

Riley rolls a 19!

Re: RILEY MAE

[peanutbuttercup]

Reece can help Riley steal ornaments. he is also not as sneaky as he thinks he is, so this can only go extremely well

Reece

[peanutbuttercup]

With some teamwork and help, Reece (& OTHER PEOPLE?) gets a pretty even distribution of magical lights up on the tree and fiddles around with them until they twinkle in Azurcrest colors. Sparkly!

Kenzie

[princeprincess.insanejournal.com]

Kenzie will decorate for a bit before getting bored and declaring herself the strong arm of Azurcrest. She's off to do what she does best: cause problems for other people.

Cecil

[choneychurch]

Normally, Cecil enjoys this event. He gets to sing with the choir, decorate a beautiful Christmas tree with his housemates (and be automatically useful as a ridiculously tall person), and just enjoy the spirit of the season. Unfortunately, he knows the actual reason that Diego isn't staying and that has an impact on him. He's quiet and distracted, but will still help out and try to contribute where he can. He's definitely off his game.

Sneaky Ivy

[duelled]

Ivy also made a doodle candy cane for Laurel. She's not very stealthy and probably looks super suspicious as she sneaks up to the Azurcrest tree like she's gonna steal something off of it, but all she does is leave the candy cane on a head-height branch and RUN AWAY.

Ryan

[dooomcookie]

Ryan is not a huge decorating person, but he was urged down by members of his house and just out of boredom?

He's completely useless unless given direction, but he is pretty tall and can offer services there if anyone needs it.

Frankie

[nobletoo]

Yes, decorating!

Frank has definitely been an active and enthusiastic member of Ree's Christmas Prep train and comes into this one armed and very ready to decorate things. Things that are at a reasonable height. (The Azurcrest Sophomore Girl's cabin is nothing more than a den of metal and craft supplies. True fact.)

But she's apparently a beast with snowballs. So, hey. She can chuck those at people's heads too. And then apologize. Because that's probably rude.

Laurel

[laaurel.insanejournal.com]

Laurel's contribution is a bunch of garlands made of colorful string, lil pom-poms charmed to slowly change between shades of blue, etc. Basically... repurposed odds and ends she isn't using for costuming. :'d

Addy!

[addytives]

Addy is here and another RUN AROUND WITH VERY LITTLE DIRECTION type person. Tastefully decorating a tree is not high priority for her but if anyone wants to recreate 2008 and set something on fire...

THAT'S A JOKE, HAHA, SHE JUST BELIEVES in way too much tinsel

Quinn

[quinning]

Azurcrest learned years ago that asking Quinn to decorate the tree is not the path to victory. She hangs one bauble to appease Merrill (it falls off as soon as she turns around) and spends the rest of the time as a staging area for others, decked out in ornaments and tinsel waiting to be hung.

Sofia

[dank.insanejournal.com]

Sofia LOVES decorating for Christmas and firmly believes in having lots of sparkle and color and glitter. She was there in her best Christmas sweater (https://80stees.imgix.net/s/files/1/0384/0921/products/ninja-turtles-faux-christmas-sweater.main.jpeg?v=1449672499&auto=format&fit=max&h=1500&w=1500&) and enthusiastically joined in with the carols. These (http://www.geekdecor.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/star-wars-christmas-ornaments-geek-decor-1.jpg) and these (https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1NUZ2KFXXXXXXXpXXq6xXFXXXy/5pcs-Cloisonne-Enamel-font-b-Pineapple-b-font-Carft-font-b-Ornament-b-font-Charms-Home.jpg) were her contributions and she also tried to sneak this (http://www.ifitshipitshere.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/UO-marijuana-leaf-christmas-ornament-IIHIH.jpg) one in but was probably stopped.

Zeke

[bornofwinterair.insanejournal.com]

Zeke finds as much tinsel as possible and puts it into the depths of the tree to help it glow from the inside. (Trust me this makes sense.) He also hunts down any ornaments charmed with glow spells to add.

He is still singing Holiday songs loudly while he does this, in that beautiful tenor voice of his.

Micah

[stclair]

Tree decorating is not difficult. You just take stuff and hang it on a branch. Done.

Unfortunately Micah is way too distracted snapping pictures and hiding in the maze to capture people tussling over pointless boxes of baubles instead of, like, actually participating. He makes the effort once reminded, but then eventually wanders off to make notes for a post-apocalyptic Christmas film in which children must decorate the perfect tree for the entertainment of adults, or be culled. It's a commentary on the disgusting commercialization of Christmas.

Levi

[gdilevi]

Levi brought ornaments of his dog. ... As in, he hole punched photographs of his dog, Chester, and looped a piece of yarn to hang it. When he ran out of photographs of his dog that he was willing to sacrifice to the cause, he made really poorly AWESOMELY drawn pictures of Chester.

EXAMPLE OF SOME FINE ARTWORK:



He also wrote his and Cecil's names on a ribbon to tie to the highest branch of the tree. FORESHADOWING??????

After he's done putting his contributions on the tree, he goes to fuck around in the maze to see what he can find.

Katya

[catseyenebula.insanejournal.com]

Katya shows up and happily helps decorate, she isn't the most creative of people so really it'll be her helping other people with their grand plans. She might be a bit more useful than just throwing glitter around and is super pumped to be here! Katya has a little Russian flag to add to the tree as well.

Essie!

[magitechnically]

Essie loves this event and Ree has definitely made sure no one in the cabin forgets it's coming up. Essie arrives with three delicate metal ornaments that have been charmed to move: Luna, the hedgehog ornament, rolls into a ball when someone touches it; Lola, the owl ornament, twists its head and hops along the branch it's resting on; and Pancake, the bunny ornament, wriggles its nose and hides it face.

Other than that, she spends most of her time investigating the tree for any ornaments she thinks would be fun to charm extra effects on.

(okay i really just needed to share that video that marin sent me with everyone because it's so cuuuuute. ♥)

Jesse McBride

[jijmjr]

Jesse eventually leaves the courtyard once he realizes these pies suck and they're not clogging the whole in his heart where Cecil sweets once lived. His main contribution to the tree is lifting Ree onto his shoulders, so she can reach the high branches, and smacking ornaments out of the hands of rival houses.

Henrietta

[unregrettable]

Etta can run REALLY FAST so she's right there grabbing boxes of ornaments and wrestling them off other, smaller people if necessary. And she's tall! So she can help reach up to the highest branches! She is also down for being part of a RAIDING PARTY if necessary. COME ON RNG GUYS, WE CAN DO THIS~~ okay maybe we're gonna come last BUT WE HAD FUN~~

Re: NORTH TREE: AZURCREST

[ohappyday.insanejournal.com]

Lach has been knitting ornaments (http://www.gisforgift.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Screen-Shot-2014-12-02-at-8.36.56-AM-e1417729128505.png) in preparation for the party for a few weeks. His last one, which he was proudest of, was a blue jay with holly (http://intheloopknitting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/il_570xN.382492809_950w.jpg) that he placed on the tree with a flourish.