She despised Christmas even when she was younger she had hated the holiday with a passion.
Bellatrix hated the glittering decorations and the family gatherings where everybody dressed up and wore false smiles as they lied about how wonderful the decorations looked and how wonderful the food was.
When what they really meant was, my house looks better and my house elves can cook much better food than this blindfolded.
As a child Bellatrix had always snuck off to get away from these things , but now as an adult she had to stand there by her husband's side.
Wearing the same fake smile she had seen her mother wear a thousand times as she greeted guests.
Bellatrix was having a hard time deciding which she currently loathed more Christmas or the guest.
The situation was similar to sitting through a six hour play that was utterly horrendous, but at the end everybody still claps and they're standing there wondering why they are clapping their hands.
The only good thing about it being her own party was Bellatrix could drink and drinking she was, but not wine as the rest of the pure-blood wives were, but whiskey and lots of it.
As she smiled and laughed in all the right places Bellatrix pondered what she could be doing instead of playing hostess and wife; she could have been going over the plans with the Dark Lord for the raid on Tuesday.
Yes she knew the plan down to the smallest detail, but it would have been better than what she was doing.
Bellatrix could hear her mother's voice in her head chiding her for that thought, " A woman's place is beside her husband and not on the battlefield Bellatrix" the voice echoed in her mind.
What she wouldn't give to be in a battle at that moment, but she had promised Rodolphus, when they married that she would play the wife for important occasions while the rest of the time she could be a DeathEater without objections or complaint from him.
It had been a "compromise" so they both got what they wanted out of their forced marriage and Rodolphus had kept his side of the deal and she would honor hers even though she hated it.