Duke didn't even know where she'd been hiding the artificial tree that was now on his coffee table, but regardless, it was there now and she was going to decorate it; even if most of the ornaments seemed to be bigger than the tree itself.
She rummaged through the paper company box next to her, humming It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas to herself as she grabbed an ornament box and began to open it.
Duke sat next to her, handing her a mug of tea. She took it, grinning at him, "Oh what, no hot chocolate?"
"Figured I'd save that until we got a little closer to the actual holiday." Duke commented, holding his own mug up for her.
She clinked her mug against his, smirking, "It's never too early for hot chocolate."
"Mm-hm," Duke hummed back skeptically, leaning forward to look through the box by her feet. Noting the sheer number of ornaments, and the box that she'd tucked under the table yet to be dealt with, he commented, "Looks like you've got more ornaments than you have tree here."
She smiled fondly as she held up an ornament of Disney character and hung it carefully from one of the small branches of the tree, "Yeah I know. I don't need all of them to go up, but it'd be nice if some of them made it."
"Are you really going to make me ask?"
She gave him a confused look, taking a drink of her tea, "What about?"
"Why do you have so many ornaments?"
"Oh!" She laughed, setting the mug on the table next to the tree, "It was a tradition my parents started when they were first living together. Every Christmas, we'd each get a new ornament to put on the tree. I have an ornament for every Christmas that I've been alive basically."
Her smile turned sad as she added, "When Mom died, I made sure that I kept all the ornaments that she and Dad had collected. So it looks like a lot but it's not. Not really."
He rubbed her back briefly and she closed her eyes and sighed. She leaned down and opened the other box to reveal a rather ornate, gold angel, holding a pair of bells on a string in its ceramic hands. She smiled fondly at the angel before holding it in both of her hands and closing her eyes.
Duke studied her for a second, confused at the ritual he was seeing but feeling as if he was seeing something private and privileged, when she opened her eyes and held the angel out to him, saying, "Make a wish."
His confusion only deepened, "What?"
She reached for one of his hands and placed it on the angel, "When I was little and Mom and I would decorate the tree, when we would get to the angel, we would each hold it and make a wish on it before we put it on top of the tree. When I was little I used to wish for things, but as I got older, I'd wish for good things in the coming year. It…I dunno, there was just something magical about the whole thing. Even when I got older, and I knew there probably wasn't anything too mystical about the angel, it was still comforting to do it."
Duke took the angel from her and looked down at its painted face, "It ever work?"
She just smiled at him, "I guess I never really put much thought into it. And it never really mattered; it was always more about the tradition than anything else I guess."
He looked between her and the angel, his skepticism clear on his face. She nudged him gently, "Go on, she won't bite. She's been watching out for me since I was little."
He smirked at her before looking at the angel, "Alright…little…angel person. I wish–"
"Not out loud." Jennifer interrupted.
"What?"
She gave him an incredulous look, "Don't you know the rules of wish making? If you say it out loud, it won't come true!"
"You just said–"
"Who's tradition is this?"
Duke sighed, conceding, "Alright, alright."
He held the angel in his hands and closed his eyes, though his mind was drawing a blank on what he could wish for.
He heard Jennifer start to hum a new song, It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year this time, and smiled to himself.
He opened his eyes and carefully placed the angel on the tree. Once it was secure, he reached over and wrapped his arms around Jennifer, and pulled her close to him.
Who needed a wish anyway.