Lily knelt on the carpet in her new living room, a big cardboard box in front of her, unwrapping ornaments. They'd only just moved into their cozy cottage in Godric's Hollow a few months ago, but with Christmas fast approaching, she wanted everything to be perfect for the holiday.
"You know you can do that with magic, right?" James teased as he came into the room. He flourished his wand, and pine boughs decked with bright red ribbons and jingle bells draped themselves across the mantelpiece. "See?"
"I know that," Lily huffed, "but it's more fun to do it the Muggle way." With a wave of her wand, she Vanished the garlands and rocked back on her heels.
"No fair!" James cried.
"We always did it the Muggle way," Lily said firmly. "Ever since I was a little girl."
"Well, we always did it the magic way," James countered, his eyes twinkling behind his square spectacles. "Ever since I was a little boy."
"I'm serious, James." Lily said, frowning slightly. "I want our first Christmas together to be special, and I want to take the time to put all the decorations up by hand. Please?"
"Okay, fine, you win," James said, dropping down beside his wife. He picked up an unwrapped ornament, a clay kitten with a red-and-white striped stocking cap. Lily remembered that one from her childhood, something she'd made in art class before she'd found out she was a witch. "Where do we start?"
She grinned, plucking a rosy red bauble off the ground. "I'll show you."
After decorating the tree by hand (and having him lift her onto his shoulders so she could place the angel on the topmost branch), Lily moved them on to the rest of the living room. She allowed him to magic up the pine branches and ribbons, but she insisted that they put the garlands together by hand.
"Mine is lopsided," James complained as they stood back, surveying the results of an hour's worth of labor. The garlands looked neat, that much was true, but not as good as his conjured ones, and his red bow was decidedly crooked.
Lily leaned forward and gave her bow a tweak. "There, now they're both lopsided. That makes them even."
"I don't think it works like that, love."
But Lily only smiled and pulled him towards the kitchen. "Time for the Christmas cookies!"
She measured out the ingredients by hand, and despite his protests that they were making enough for a small army ("You and the boys are a small army, James!"), they baked and decorated every last one.
Lily was spooning the icing into different bowls so she could color it. She wanted every color of the rainbow, black for outlining and detail, brown for James' many Christmas deer, and some extra white left over for snowflakes, so every bowl in the house was being used, and some coffee mugs besides. She had pulled out all sorts of candy decorations too, and sprinkles, sugar dust, and crushed peppermint joined forces with the icing-filled bowls to cover every last available surface in the tiny kitchen. Sheets and sheets of cookies sat on cooling racks placed in increasingly inconvenient places. James watched as Lily feverishly separated the icing, dribbling at least half of it as she moved the spoon from bowl to bowl, the sugary substance joining the already spilled flour and cinnamon on the kitchen floor.
James stepped back from the chaotic scene, watching as his wife ladled out the portions. Hopefully she'd let him use magic to clean up the mess. He didn't fancy scrubbing flour from the floor the Muggle way.
A sudden thought coming to him, he said a quick incantation and a spring of mistletoe sprung up in the doorway.
"Why, would you look at this, Lily?" Grinning, he drew her under the leafy plant with him. At first, she didn't understand, and she turned round in his grip.
"Wha- James, I have to finish the frosting, I have-"
But her protests stopped as she followed the finger that James lifted silently into the air. Her eyes softened and she smiled, reaching up to wipe a bit of icing off his nose.
"I wonder how that got here," she teased, eyes sparkling.
"Do you think you can excuse this bit of magic?" he asked, pulling her towards him. He ran the pad of his thumb over her cheek, dusting off some errant flour.
"Mmhmm, I think I can overlook it just this once." Lily lazily wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled up at him. "Merry Christmas, James."
"Merry Christmas, Lily."
And as he leaned down and she leaned up, deepening the kiss, he supposed it was a very merry Christmas indeed.
AN: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year to all! I hope you enjoyed this short and sweet holiday fic! (Characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not me!)