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"Uh oh," Hope said with a smile as she walked across the room to her boyfriend.
"Something wrong?" Gideon asked.
"Not at all," Hope rested her elbow on his shoulder, despite how much taller he was. "You're under the mistletoe."
"Yeah?"
"So that means I have to kiss you." Hope said, booping his nose with her finger. "You know how those silly little traditions are."
"Not really," Gideon said. "In actuality, the earliest roots of the tradition only related to ladies standing under the mistletoe. There's no historical record of if anything happens at all if a gentleman does."
"You're really killing the moment here, Gid."
"And also, the tradition didn't even require the men to kiss women who found themsleves under the mistletoe, it just said the women aren't allowed to refuse if they do choose to kiss them."
Apparently, the time-honored Christmas tradition of using a decorative plant as an excuse to do something you wouldn't mind doing anyways was no match for the time-honored Gideon tradition of frustrating Hope's coquette advances with oblivious intelligence. This one needed a more direct approach.
"Well, would you refuse if I chose to kiss you, Gid?" She asked, with a playful batting of the eyes.
"Of course not." Gideon said, then looked down at her with a surprised smile. "Are you gonna kiss me, Hope?"
"If it'll get you to stop ruining perfectly fine holiday traditions with all your stupid facts."
"Well in that case," Gideon smiled in his own understanding of the assignment, "did you know that, despite being widely regarded as one of the most beloved Christmas carols, Joy to the World is not actually about Christmas?"
"Yeah," Hope said, stepping up on tiptoes so her nose brushed against his, "ones like that."
He leaned down just a bit, closing the distance between their lips and sealing it with a kiss.
Hope pulled away and saw a smug smile on Gideon's face.
"Jingle bells isn't technically a Christmas Carol either." He said. "It's about Thanksgiving."
Though Gideon didn't always get her hints, she understood his perfectly, and gave him another quick peck on the lips.
"You know," Gideon said, "by definition, a carol is a song where the choruses are sung in Latin, but the verses...."
Hope sighed and rolled her eyes. As much as she loved his rambling, she loved stopping him from rambling all the more, and her preferred method of doing so: she grabbed his collar and interrupted him, not with words, but with another kiss, this time one that lasted a little bit longer.