"Zoe. Come on baby wake up!" Evan said, poking his girlfriends side.
Zoe made a noise of discomfort and Evan chuckled.
"Tree decorating." Evan whispered. Zoe rolled over and buried her face in Evan's chest.
"Can't decorate. Sleeping." Zoe said. Evan laughed softly and kissed the top of her head.
"Okay. Then I'll just decorate the tree myself. Maybe I'll do it right. But I don't know." Evan said, slowly sitting up. Zoe's eyes flew open and she sat up.
"Okay okay! I'm awake. But breakfast before decorating." Zoe said. Evan smiled and got out of bed, followed by Zoe. He looked over at Zoe and saw her pulling her slippers on.
"What do you want for breakfast?" Evan asked. Zoe smiled.
"Can we have pancakes?" Zoe asked. Evan smiled and helped her up.
"Pancakes it is!" Evan said.
"I can cook if you want babe." Zoe offered.
"No way babe. You are probably going to end up taking down the tree and moving it twice before deciding it's okay, so I will cook breakfast." Evan said. Zoe smiled and kissed him.
"Okay fine. You can cook and then we'll decorate." Zoe said. Evan took her hand and led her downstairs. Zoe sat at the island and watched Evan pull out what he needed for making pancakes.
"Would you like any help Master Chef?" Zoe asked.
"No thank you. You sit and relax, I will make you breakfast." Evan said. Zoe smiled and blew him a kiss.
"I love you!" Zoe said happily. Evan smiled and poured water and the pancake mix into the bowl and started mixing it.
"I love you too." Evan said. He started putting batter onto the skillet and Zoe stood behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and sighed happily. Evan smiled and started to hum under his breath as he flipped the pancakes.
+++
"Okay what first?" Evan asked.
"Lights. Lights always go first. Can you run down and grab me the last bin of ornaments? I'll start untangling the lights." Zoe said.
"Absolutely babe." Evan said. He walked out of the room and Zoe picked up the tangle of multicoloured lights. She slowly started to untangle the lights before quickly realizing that she had gotten her hands and her forearms tangled in the lights.
"Okay babe where am I - what the hell happened to you?" Evan asked.
"I may or may not have gotten tangled in the lights." Zoe said. Evan chuckled and out the box of decorations down before plugging the plug into an outlet near Zoe.
"It helps if you plug them in before you try to untangle them." Evan said smiling.
"Oh shush. So I got tangled in the lights, big deal." Zoe said. Evan smiled.
"I now have something to tell your brother when we pick him and Meredith up from the airport." Evan said triumphantly. Zoe scowled at Evan and Evan started untangling the lights from her arms. When Zoe was finally free she sighed and turned to Evan.
"I will help untangle the lights." He said. Zoe smiled in relief.
"Thank you!" She said smiling. She continued to untangle the lights and when they were finished she smiled.
"There! Now we can put them on the tree!" Zoe said.
Evan smiled and plugged the lights into an outlet under the tree. Zoe smiled and gently started wrapping the lights around the tree.
"There! Very pretty!" Evan said. Zoe smiled and grabbed a box of ornaments.
"Okay, so we need to spread everything out. Only start cramming stuff on when we start running out of room. Or else the tree will be really crowded before we're halfway done." Zoe said. Evan nodded and started hanging the ornaments on the tree.
"Music! We need music!" Zoe said.
She put her box down and ran into the other room. Evan shrugged and continued to put ornaments on the tree. Minutes later he heard the Barenaked Ladies version of Jingle Bells playing through a Bluetooth speaker. He chuckled as Zoe came running back into the living room.
"We need to get the tree skirt and also vacuum up all the needles and we need to make sure the tree gets watered everyday or it'll die!" Zoe said.
"Aren't I the tree expert?" Evan asked. Zoe smiled and nodded.
"But I'm the Christmas expert so I win." She said smirking at Evan. Evan kissed her and Zoe gasped again.
"The tinsel!" She said.
She ran to another bin and started digging through it before pulling a skinny tube out of the bin. She put it on the windowsill before picking her box up again.
"You're not putting the tinsel on?" Evan asked. Zoe looked at him.
"Not now. The tinsel goes on last. After everything else is on. It goes lights, ornaments, tinsel, and then the angel!" Zoe said. Evan laughed as Zoe started putting the ornaments in her box on the tree.
"Where is the angel?" Evan asked, looking at the boxes. Zoe spun around and looked at the boxes.
"Isn't she in one of them?" Zoe asked.
"I didn't see her." Evan said. Zoe put her box down and started looking through the bins.
"Where did she go?" Zoe asked. She was getting irritated.
"Babe, it's going to be fine, we can get a star or a different angel." Evan said, putting his box down and walking towards his distressed girlfriend.
"I found her!" Zoe said. She pulled an angel out of the box and smiled, looking at the tree.
"Tinsel time?" She asked.
"Tinsel time." Evan agreed. Zoe pulled the lid off the container and started to put the shiny metal twists all over the tree.
Almost 10 minutes later, she stepped back and smiled.
"And because you're an angel, you get to put her up." Zoe said. Evan kissed Zoe before putting the angel on the top of the tree.
"It's a beautiful tree isn't it?" Zoe asked, stepping back and getting a full view of the tree. Evan kissed the top of her head and nodded.
"It really is Zo."
