Lauren was sat on the couch, internally rolling her eyes at the amount of tweets about Christmas she was already seeing, when she heard a thud coming from her and Joey's bedroom. She ignored it for a while, until she heard another thud, and then she couldn't resist the urge to get up and see what Joey was doing.
She stopped in the doorway, because her path was blocked by a pile of boxes almost as tall as her. She could just about see Joey over the top of them.
"JoJo?" she said.
He turned around from where he'd been reaching for another box on top of their wardrobe.
"What are you doing?" she asked, an eyebrow raised at him.
He glanced between her and the top of the wardrobe guiltily, wondering if he could come up with an excuse fast enough. He'd waited too long though, so he decided he was better off telling the truth.
"I was getting the Christmas decorations down."
She laughed in disbelief.
"JoJo, we're not putting up the Christmas decorations yet." She didn't want to put a damper on his Christmas spirit, but there was such a thing as putting decorations up too early.
"But-"
"Babe, it's only the first."
"Which means it's Christmas," he protested.
"At least wait until after Hanukkah," she countered.
He sighed, knowing he wasn't going to win this argument, and grabbed one of the boxes to heave it back up on top of the wardrobe.
Lauren stayed in the doorway, watching him fondly, which gave him the opportunity to rifle through one of the boxes to find a branch of artificial mistletoe.
He held it up as he walked towards her, but she backed up, laughing.
"Nope, not happening."
"It's tradition, you have to."
"It's fake, it doesn't count." Joey rolled his eyes at her.
"Why do we even have mistletoe?" she asked.
"Because it's a Christmas classic, Lauren."
"And because it gives you an excuse to make out with me," she said, her arms folded across her chest.
Joey raised his arms in a helpless shrug.
"Do you remember your first Christmas here?" he asked, a grin appearing on his face.
"When you hung up mistletoe in every inch of the apartment so I couldn't escape kissing you?" she said, shaking her head in amused disapproval.
A mischievous gleam came into Joey's eyes and Lauren held up a warning finger.
"You're not getting away with that again."
Joey pouted, and she relented. "You know you don't need an excuse to kiss me."
Joey turned around from where he'd been about to return another one of the boxes. Seeing the smirk on her face, he held out his hands to her and pulled her into him for a kiss.
"But you're still not putting the decorations up yet," she called over her shoulder as she went back to the couch.
