callmeemily: ([pleased] better days)
Raleigh Harper / Emily Watkins ([personal profile] callmeemily) wrote2014-12-24 01:25 am

Here comes santa claus!

The holiday this year is so incredibly different than the last.

Last year? Raleigh was holed up in the boarding house, no one in 300 miles but her shitty boss knew her name, and she was so poor that she was eating rice, beans, and leftovers from the Seaside bakery.

This year, everything's changed. Orchard House is chugging along astoundingly well; Raleigh puts in long hours, but it's paying off. She's been able to hire somebody else to work the register, she's getting custom orders - the whole thing. She has friends. Honest to god friends, and she's got enough money that she's actually got presents for people. For a lot of people - it's a mix of cookies and things, but there's a little something for everybody piled on the table in the back corner, and one mass-text later she's humming through the bakery, music playing from the speakers, warm cider in a carafe, and everything's warm and cozy.

She looks at it, at this business that she's made with the help of this whole town, and she can't help but smile. Tonight? Spending tonight with friends and found-family? That's what this whole thing's about.

Gathering post! Raleigh will tag everyone who tags in, but feel free to tag one another, too. :) It's up to you if they have gotten a text, or just heard the music and seen the crowd. Everyone'll get something!
astra_inclinant: (sunny)

[personal profile] astra_inclinant 2014-12-26 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
Mira beams at her and wraps her in a tight squish of a hug, which is basically the only kind she gives, at least to people she likes. Raleigh's small enough that Mira could probably pick her up (which is honestly cool given that Mira's the littler one of most people she knows), but that's an enthusiasm reserved for once she's 100 percent sure she's not going to scare people off with being weird, and she really likes Raleigh so she'd rather not do that yet.

"Thanks for inviting me! Annd...that's a good question..." She pauses. She's not starving, and she's used to waving off effort on her behalf, but she's standing in a bakery and it honestly smells delicious. "I mean. If I turned down anything in here I'd have to question my own sanity. It smells amazing."
astra_inclinant: (Default)

[personal profile] astra_inclinant 2014-12-26 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)

Mira grins. No matter how much better she is these days at talking to people, and how she's managed to settle into friends she loves and trusts, there's something fluttery and exciting about someone being truly happy to see you, someone new. "Unless you forgot the ginger part, I'm sure it's great," she laughs and starts in that direction, blinking, impressed, at the pile of food and trying to imagine that quite a bit is gone. "That's a ton of stuff. Do you want to sit down?"

"Oh, you didn't have to do that!" Mira. "I um. I actually got you something too? But still. Yes, we should totally do presents." She grimaces nervously and laughs. "I really hope you like it?"

astra_inclinant: (sunny)

[personal profile] astra_inclinant 2014-12-27 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
Mira gets herself some cookies. "I will fly my hypocritical flag proudly if it means doing things for people that they don't need to do for me." She pauses for a second because she's got the mind of like, a ten year old boy, and then breezes right past that. "Right? It's always better when it's not obligatory."

"No judging, I promise. Unless you got me like, a book by Bill O'Reilly or something. And then I think I'd just worry about how I come off to other people." She laughs, sitting down. "Mm, you definitely didn't mess up the gingerbread."
astra_inclinant: (Default)

[personal profile] astra_inclinant 2014-12-27 10:01 pm (UTC)(link)

She laughs. "Nah, I needed something for my awkward rightwing propaganda shelf, it was looking a little bare."

She pulls hers for Raleigh out of her pocket. It's two things, actually, one a little sillier than the other, and the wrapping gives away that the edges aren't one even rectangle, or at least that Mira is really only good with the theoretical way things behave. "So, who goes first?" She'd been pretty sure when she put it together but now she's slightly nervous that it's weird or off base.

Mira'd spotted a glucose molecule necklace and immediately thought of Raleigh, because of baking - carbs and sugar - and her having been a bio major, she figured she'd get it - and then made her a mix tape with a combination of fun and chill: a whole variety of interesting stuff, and a whole side B of on-the-road singalongs and nostalgic guilty pleasures since Raleigh's music preferences are something she doesn't know exactly.

astra_inclinant: (sunny)

[personal profile] astra_inclinant 2014-12-29 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"I suppoooose that's fair," Mira smiles, and swaps her unruly pyramid for Raleigh's cute gift bag.

She digs into the tissue paper and grins as she pulls out the jar of stars. "Hey, cool!" She turns the jar around, looking at the little shimmery stars. "This is really pretty." She pulls her eyes away from the shiny. Anything star or space themed, really, she's super easy. "And I could use the luck." She pats the jar. "Do I hear a Christmas bonus maybe?"

But she sees that's not it and digs back in, laughing aloud at the L.L. Bean card. "Aw, sweet, this will totally come in handy. Actually, that sort of connects to one of yours," she nods at the gift Raleigh's holding tentatively.