Mistletoe’s Little Crime [Wreath]
The first sign that the night was going off script was not the spiked punch or the too-loud playlist or Aunt Sheryl arguing with a plastic reindeer about parking in the driveway,
it was the mistletoe over the doorway shifting half an inch to the left like it had changed its mind mid-hang and decided it wanted a better angle on the room.
I saw it move, I swear I did, a little twitch of green above the crowd of sweaters and half-sincere smiles,
a small shimmy of glossy leaves and white berries that caught the glow of the cheap string lights and winked,
like it knew secrets about every single person in the living room and could not wait to weaponize them.
“Probably just the heater,” somebody said when I mentioned it,
as if central air had a side hustle as a matchmaker,
but the vent was on the other side of the wall and the mistletoe drifted anyway,
levitating one slow inch closer to the guy you’ve been trying not to stare at all year,
the one laughing too loud at a joke that isn’t funny just so he doesn’t have to look at you.
The house was one of those cramped holiday specials:too many bodies, too few chairs, the coffee table groaning under plates of cookies that looked like they lost a knife fight,
the tree in the corner leaning like it had given up on standing straight for this family years ago and just went with it,
wrapping paper shrapnel already underfoot and one kid somehow both wired and exhausted at the same time.
And up above it all, that little clump of leaves floated from doorway to doorway,
pretending to be an innocent decoration while it stalked its prey.
It started small.
Cousin Jenna came through the kitchen with a tray of pigs in blankets,
and the mistletoe slid into place over her head like a sniper lining up a shot;
she walked smack into the threshold, tray teetering,
and straight into the chest of the cute bartender from the place down the streetwho “just dropped by” to deliver the forgotten credit card and somehow never left.
Someone shouted, “Mistletoe!” like it was a legal ruling,
and the room turned toward them like a single nosy organism.
Jenna went scarlet, the bartender grinned,
and there it was: quick, awkward, soft,
a ceremony signed with pastry crumbs and the smell of cheap beer.
The mistletoe quivered once, satisfied, then drifted off to hunt again.
By ten o’clock it had orchestrated a full-scale rom-com montage.
It cornered the grumpy neighbor who always complains about parking,
guided him straight into the path of the widow from across the street whose laugh sounds like clinking glass,
and let the room chant them together until both of them gave in and kissed like they had been lonely for years and this felt like borrowing someone else’s movie.
It dropped lower to ambush the pair of exes who swore they were “totally fine now”until they found themselves under the same green trap,
their cheeks hot, history humming under their ribs like an old engine.
They did not kiss, not at first,
but they did talk for the first time in months,
their voices low, their eyes glancing up at the leaves like they were negotiating with a tiny, leafy god.
Every so often the mistletoe would drift dangerously close to the boss from accounting,
the one in the glitter tie who had already made three speeches about synergy,
and the crowd would hold its breath as it wobbled overhead like a tiny wrecking ball of HR violations,
only to glide away at the last second,
as if even cursed holiday plants understand liability.
Someone tried to grab it, of course.
A hand reached up, fingers splayed,
and the plant snapped away in midair like it had its own survival instinct,
circling the room just out of reach,
mocking anyone who thought they could control where kisses land.
I stayed near the wall, nursing a cup of something warm and brown and questionable,
doing that trick where you laugh just enough that people think you’re fineand don’t see the way your eyes keep drifting to the doorway like you’re waiting for the right ghost to walk through it.
He was over there by the tree,
untangling lights that had lost their will to stay in one line,
his hands steady, his face lit in flickers of red and gold that made him look softer than usual,
less like the sarcastic shield he wears at work and more like the person behind it.
The mistletoe knew.
Of course it knew.
It floated above the crowd like a shark fin through a sea of forced cheer,
then slid toward us with leisurely confidence,
half a foot drop, little sideways drift,
until it hovered directly above the uneven space between us,
close enough that I could see tiny beads of melted frost along the stems.
“Don’t even think about it,” I muttered under my breath,
which is exactly the kind of thing people say right before something thinks very hard about it.
He looked up, followed my eyes,
and saw the green hanging between us like a dare in plant form.
One of the aunts spotted the alignment and let out a shriek of delight that could have cracked glass,
and suddenly the whole room was chanting again,
names mashed together, drunk with the power of tradition and assumed permission.
“We don’t have to,” he said quietly, leaning closer so only I could hear,
his breath warm against my ear, my pulse stuttering like faulty lights.“We could stage a daring escape; you distract them, I jump out the window.”
“You’re on the third floor,” I whispered back.“We’d die. But it would be dramatic.”
“That plant is really committed to workplace awkwardness,” he said,
and the mistletoe dipped slightly between us,
as if offended by being called out.
We stood there in the noise,
a tiny island of waiting,
my fingers tightening on my cup, his hand sliding into his pocket the way it does when he’s nervous and trying to look like he isn’t.
Snow tapped gently against the window behind him,
the world outside soft and distant,
the world inside loud and pressing for a show.
“Hey,” he said, eyes steady on mine now,
the jokes dropping out of his tone one by one.“We get to decide if tradition owns us or we own it, yeah?”
I smiled, throat tight. “I mean, I wouldn’t hate giving the plant what it wants.”
He laughed, low and surprised,
and in that moment it wasn’t about the crowd or the chant or the stupid little cluster of leaves,
it was about the way his laugh folded into the hollow places in my chestand made room where there hadn’t been any all year.
So we kissed.
Not rushed, not apologetic,
no half-turned cheek or quick peck to appease the mob,
but the kind of kiss that starts cautious and then deepens when the ground doesn’t fall away beneath you,
the kind that tastes like cinnamon, nerves, and the possibility that maybe the next twelve months don’t have to be as lonely as the last twelve were.
The room cheered, of course.
Somebody wolf-whistled,
someone dropped a plate and didn’t even apologize.
But the mistletoe hung perfectly still for the first time that night,
suspended above us like it had just completed a mission,
its leaves glossy, its berries pale and smug.
Later, much later, when the crowd thinned and the playlist looped back to the same three holiday tracks it always gets stuck on,
I found that the plant had relocated to the hallway outside my bedroom door.
No hands had put it there.
No hooks waited on that frame.
It just hung in the air,
patient as a cat, expectant as a promise.
He saw it when he went to grab his coat from the pile on my bed,
paused under the doorway,
looked back at me with that same half-nervous, half-hopeful expression.
“You know,” he said,“this thing really does get around.”
“Yeah,” I answered, walking toward him,
feeling my heart hammer but not in the panicked way for once,
more like it was knocking to be let out where the air was warmer.“It has taste.”
We stood under the hovering green troublemaker,
laughing softly in a house that had finally quieted down,
and somewhere between that first shy kiss and the second, much less shy one,
I decided that maybe cursed plants and pushy traditions weren’t all bad,
as long as you steal them back and make them yours.
If you listen closely,
on certain December nights when the world is covered in frost and confession,
you can hear a faint rustle above crowded doorways,
leaves adjusting themselves into position,
berries gleaming like tiny moons,
just waiting to stir up a little chaos in the name of connection.
Mistletoe is a menace, sure,
but it’s our kind of menace,
and some mischief is worth letting hang over your head.