It had all started with an old man humming Jingle Bells as he left her office. The man, barely five foot three, with great snowy tufts of hair pouring out of his ears, was a sweet guy, and one of her most favorite patients. A little batty, but that was, more or less, how Harley liked her old folks. Made them honest. Made them real.

The old guy wished her a merry Christmas so happily and enthusiastically that she couldn't take insult, even though she was Jewish. Anyway, it was like her bubby always said: "don't be meshuggah."

Oops. Harley supposed she hadn't done so well with that one. But granny also said "take the blessings of strangers with kindness," and Harley figured those were solid words to live by. The man was a lonely fellow anyway, and the time he spent in her office, he once confided, was some of his most treasured.

As he skipped out, full of holiday joy, he hummed that incessant tune, which quickly niggled its way into Harley's head until she couldn't help but hum it herself. Heading home in the brisk winter air of Brooklyn, her earworm hums soon transformed into singing. She plucked the Santa hat off a streetside display, planting it on her head and skipping the rest of the way home, sharing seasonal cheer with the very confused passersby.

By the time she tripped her way up to the top floor of her building, to the combination pet room and atrium, the song had morphed into a parody of sorts that tickled her a gleeful pink.

"Jingle bells! Batman smells! Robin laid am egg!" She squawked loudly. "The Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker did balleaaaayyy!" Her voice squealed upward on the final note, and when she opened her eyes wide from crooning, she saw a vaguely perturbed Ivy staring at her with a mix of reticence and vague displeasure.

"Harls, could you please not?" Ivy asked, smoothing her hair slightly, self-consciously, before attempting to sooth a very irritated Venus flytrap. "It upsets my babies..."

"Aw, Red, where's your sense of wonder? Holiday spirit? Joy, even?" Without hesitation, Harley plastered her body against Ivy's, holding her in a tight greeting hug before placing a gum-snapping kiss on her cheek. Pulling away and smiling sheepishly, one side of her mouth more crooked up than the other, she surveyed Ivy. "I sure am glad to see ya!"

"And I'm happy to see you too, but really? Taking a dreadful song and making it even worse by putting the Joker in it?" Ivy sighed, turning back to her work with the plants in the room.

"Aw, come on, hun, it's just a silly song. You know I've had it with Mistah J, anyway. I'm not going back to..." Harley bit her lip, sobering slightly. "I'm not going back to that."

Ivy turned and smiled at Harley with a look of tender love. She reached out and ruffled her hair. "Take off your work makeup, we'll go out and do some of that 'holiday cheer' stuff that you keep gabbing about."

"Aw, really?!" Harley squealed in glee before spinning around and tripping over herself to get to the bathroom and change out of her stuffy lab coat and peach-colored makeup.

Once she had returned to her au naturale pale white state, and thrown on a fuzzy red-and-black sweater and short shorts with matching tights, she ran back up to Ivy, whose leaves (which covered part of her body) were brown and brittle to match the cold of outside, and pulled out the santa hat from before, pulling it down on Ivy's red hair.

"It matches yer hair, red!" She glowed.

Ivy sighed and gave her a wilting smile. "Let's go, Harley."

Harley took Ivy's hand and practically dragged her down the stairs and out the door.

"This is gonna be the best Christmas outing ever!"

Ivy bit her lip, keeping herself from mumbling something much more negative.