A Phantastic Christmas

"I think it has to be the black bow tie, Dan," Tiffany said, holding the crumpled black material up to Dan's crisp shirt collar with her right hand. She lifted her left hand up with a thin black tie in it and draped it across his chest in comparison. "Yeah, definitely the bow tie." She smiled and started fastening the tie around Dan's neck, smoothing out his collar.

Dan sighed. "I'll look like a pretentious prick in that."

"No more than usual," Tiffany retorted.

Dan had only agreed to go along to the Ball because last year Tiffany had gone with her fiancé who had cheated on her at the ball and then proceeded to dump her a few weeks later and he was rumored to be coming tonight. Dan felt ridiculous dressed up in a black suit with black satin lapels and overly shiny black lace up shoes; with soles so hard and unworn they made a tapping noise when he walked. Tiffany had even made him push his hair off his face into a neat but floppy quiff; apparently his sweeping side fringe was too informal and "frankly immature." Dan's pocket square was emerald green, matching almost perfectly with Tiffany's floor length green gown. Before they set off for the Ball they'd had a few glasses of wine together, and were giggling at everything. Once they received the text from the taxi company saying their car had arrived, they had a last dash around Tiffany's house, making sure all the doors and windows were shut and locked, the candles blown out, and that the cats had enough food and water for the night. Dan didn't tell Tiffany, but he was nervous, he didn't usually go to big social events, but thanks to the wine he was much more confident, or at least had the ability to put on a confident face.

In the taxi, Christmas music was playing, which Dan, Tiffany and the taxi driver all sang along to, loud and proud, unashamed to show their love for the festive season. Outside the window snow was floating silently through the air, giving everything a soft, icing sugar dusting. But as the car turned into the large grounds of Tiffany's work Dan felt the familiar tightening of his stomach as he began to feel nervous about the mass of unknown people he was about to be thrown into. Tiffany worked for some big, fancy company and the head quarters were in a beautiful old stately home. The drive up to the house almost took Dan's breath away, he had never seen a building as grand as this before. It stretched on either side of the front door for what seemed to be miles. The trees along the driveway were decorated with warm white fairy lights, there were lights on either side of the road to light the way to the front of the house. There was a large, ornate fountain in the middle of the drive for the cars to drive around. The taxi dropped them off in front of the entrance steps, and they received some sour looks from the men standing outside, apparently this was because they had taken something as 'common' as a taxi to the event and were in no need of their valet service. They crunched their way up the stone steps, careful not to slip on the icy planes caused by many people walking on the snowy steps before them. Even standing outside they could hear the soft thumping of the music from inside. Dan and Tiffany ignored the glares and walked through the open front doors into the warmth.

The building's interior had a regal charm to it, with great swooping staircases leading up to the first floor from the foyer. Dan tilted his neck up and thought the ceilings seemed impossibly far away from the floors, he saw they were intricately decorated with delicately protruding details and worn, pale patterns, which in their prime would have been beautiful. Gazing around his eyes traveled across the vast windows shielding the inside from the dark, and bitterly cold outside air, which was filled with even more snow falling in twirling patterns and laying thickly on the untouched grass. The windows were draped with floor-to-ceiling curtains of a deep, dusty purple velvet material. Dan's eyes then caught sight of the floor, he snorted; there was actually a red carpet from the front doors leading into the drinks reception area. Dan rarely had the opportunity to go somewhere as fancy as this so took the chance to drink in his surroundings whilst he could. Despite still being cold from the outside weather Dan was soon warming up in this cosy room, he could hear the music seeping through the walls inviting him to venture in further.