"What's your favorite thing about Christmas?"

Rachel and Finn are lying on her bed, kissing a little and talking at the same time, but the question is a bit unexpected considering that they were just talking about Kurt's latest undertaking. He's decided, for whatever reason, that it's his job to teach Finn how to cook. For her part, Rachel thinks that Finn does just fine; it isn't as if he's going to starve if there isn't someone around to prepare his meals.

She props herself up on her elbow so she can look down at Finn. "You do remember that I'm Jewish."

He shoots her a look. "Yeah, I know, but you kind of celebrate the non-Christian parts of Christmas, and your daddy isn't Jewish."

"Secular," she says quietly before she can stop herself. "The non-Christian parts," she explains when she sees the question on his face. "They're the secular parts of the holiday."

Finn just grins, lifting his head so he can kiss her gently. "So what's your favorite secular thing about Christmas?"

Rachel lays back down, resting her head against Finn's chest and considering the question. "I don't think it's a surprise that the music is my favorite part," she says after a moment, and she hears his chuckle rumble in his chest. "But I also like Christmas trees and the lights. Gingerbread." She takes a breath when he starts running his fingers through her hair. She loves when he does that. "And I like mistletoe."

"Yeah?" She tips her head back so she can see his face.

"Yeah." She's quiet for a moment. "And I like that we're actually together this year," she admits in a whisper.

He moves so that she's on her back, and he's half on top of her, his hand resting against her ribs when he leans in to kiss her, moving slowly until his tongue is sliding against hers and she feels the kiss turning into something else.

He pulls away from her after a while, which is the right thing to do even if she hates it. Her dads are downstairs, and she doesn't have any desire to be caught in a compromising position with Finn. That they're allowing him to be here at all is a testament to how much they like him; since she was suspended, they've been restricting her activities in a way that she's never experienced before. Of course, she's never been in trouble at school before period.

"I'm glad that we're together, too," Finn murmurs, trailing his fingertips over her collarbone.

Rachel is startled when she opens her locker on Monday morning and finds that it's been broken into.

And decorated.

A paper Christmas tree is stuck inside the door, decorated with gold star stickers and pink glitter, and there's a strand of pink tinsel garland wound around the hooks at the top and over her books. Once she gets past the shock of how different it looks than it did when she left school on Friday afternoon, she finds herself smiling.

Finn peeks his head around the open locker door. "Hey."

"Hi." She smiles when he leans down to kiss her cheek. "Did you do this?"

His lips quirk. "Nah. Must've been Santa Claus."

She glances back into her locker and smiles, noticing what else is hanging from the hook at the top. "Santa Claus snuck mistletoe into my locker?"

"Huh." Finn peers into her locker, looking at it like he isn't the one responsible for the decorations. "Look at that." He shrugs. "Maybe Santa wants you to get lots of kisses for Christmas."

She's laughing when he leans down to kiss her, his hand cupping her elbow when she stands on her toes so it isn't such a strain on their necks. It's chaste and brief, since they are in the hall at school, but she thinks it's impossibly sweet.

The way Finn continues to refuse to admit that he's responsible for the decorations is also very sweet.

"Who hung the mistletoe all over the choir room?" Quinn demands when Rachel walks in. The only other person in the room is Rory, it's fairly obvious what's happened. Quinn's cheeks are pink, whether from anger or some sort of embarrassment Rachel isn't sure.

"I don't know," Rachel tells her honestly.

"Me either," Kurt sing-songs, following her through the door with Blaine. He shoots her a knowing look, one that she takes to mean that she should know exactly what's going on. She assumes that Finn must be responsible for the mistletoe, which, now that she's looking for it, she can see is hanging in a few strategic spots around the room.

She thinks it's funny that Rory was apparently the one who noticed and took advantage first. If you'd asked her to gamble on such a thing, she'd have put her money on that honor going to Noah.

Noah does walk straight to her and kiss her cheek when he comes into the room, jerking his chin up at the bunch of mistletoe that is hanging directly (conveniently) above her chair when she gives him a questioning look. He doesn't say anything, but he offers her a wink before stepping up to the next riser and dropping into a chair.

Finn kisses her, too, when he comes into the room, his lips lingering against hers.

"How did you know that I was going to sit here?" she asks him, leaning close enough that her lips brush his ear.

He pulls back to give her an odd look. "I didn't do this," he insists, gesturing vaguely at the room. "It must have been Santa."

"Santa." She lifts an eyebrow, but Finn has apparently been working on his poker face, because he just smiles and presses a quick kiss to her temple as Mr. Schuester calls the club to attention.

As it turns out, 'Santa Claus' has been very busy hanging mistletoe all over the place, including from the rearview mirror in both Rachel's car and Finn's truck and throughout the Hummel-Hudson house. There's even a bunch hanging from some of the lighting rigging on the stage in the auditorium.

Finn and Rachel aren't the only ones benefitting though; more than once, she catches sight of Mr. and Mrs. Hummel and Kurt and Blaine taking advantage. For some people, walking across the choir room has become something akin to running a guantlet. Most of the glee club (Mike, Tina, Santana, Noah, Brittany, Rory, Sam, and Sugar) is participating in something of a kissing free-for-all. If one person catches another standing under the mistletoe (which they've all taken to moving around, hanging it in new locations all the time), they get kissed, regardless of who it is. There's a running tally of who's been caught and who's done the catching on the white board; as it turns out, Rory is far sneakier than any of them had expected.

"Santa Claus appears to have opened a can of worms," Rachel comments to Finn one afternoon. They're sitting together waiting for rehearsal to begin, watching as Sugar pins Noah against the doorway to Mr. Schue's office. (Thankfully, their teacher isn't in there.)

He tilts his head when Brittany walks by Sugar and Noah and swats the girl's behind with her hand, making her squeak and pull away from a smug-looking Noah. "I don't think that's what Santa had in mind," he says, widening his eyes a bit at Rachel.

She takes his hand and slips her fingers between his. "Maybe Santa didn't think through his plan thoroughly before he executed."

"Maybe," Finn allows. He shrugs. "Whatever though. That's kind of sweet." He nods his head toward where Mike and Tina have taken over Sugar and Noah's spot and are giving each other eskimo kisses.

Rachel puts her hand on Finn's cheek and turns his head so she can brush her lips against his. "You're sweet," she whispers.

She would kiss him again, but Mr. Schuester comes in, rolling his eyes at where Sugar is sitting across Noah's lap behind the drum kit and talking about 'school appropriate behavior.'

(Like he's such a shining example. Rachel saw him and Ms. Pillsbury taking advantage of a bunch of mistletoe that was hanging above the piano bench for a couple of days until Brad pulled it down himself.)

A few days before Christmas, the glee club meets at school to go caroling at a some nursing homes and assisted living facilities around Lima, a tradition that they've been keeping up since they started the club three years ago. (Even if that first year not everyone participated.) Rachel is trying to convince Mercedes to at least look at the sheet music that she's marked when Noah saunters through the door with a smug, self-satisfied expression on his face.

And a bunch of mistletoe attached to his belt.

"Oh, hell no," Mercedes mutters under her breath, taking the opportunity afforded by Rachel's distraction to slip away from the sheet music conversation.

"Are you fucking serious?" Santana demands, looking pointedly at the mistletoe before glaring at Noah. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Whatever," he says with a smirk. "If you hadn't gone all Etheridge, you'd be all about kissin' under this mistletoe."

Santana scoffs, rolling her eyes and hopping down from her perch atop the piano. "You are an idiot." She grabs the mistletoe and pulls hard, jerking it loose from Noah's belt. She ignores his protests and shoves it against Rory's chest. "Shut it, Danny boy."

Rory, who has been giggling since Noah came in, swallows hard. He's still a little afraid of Santana, though he doesn't really need to be. Her bark has always been worse than her bite, and that's especially true these days.

"That is not what Santa intended when he invented mistletoe," Finn comments when they're all sitting on the bus waiting for them to finish loading Artie's chair. Noah is still talking about the mistletoe belt with a rapt Sugar, and if Quinn rolls her eyes any harder, Rachel honestly fears that they might get stuck in the back of her head the way her nana used to say they would.

Rachel has to work to smother her giggles. "What did Santa intend?"

"I don't know." Finn shrugs. "Not dudes being perverts and trying to get their junk sucked. Sorry," he adds when Rachel makes a face.

Rachel considers it. "Well, perversion aside, I think mistletoe could be fun for more than just innocent kissing," she tells him quietly, leaning close to his ear to ensure that no one else can hear what she's saying to her boyfriend.

Finn looks at her closely, his eyes shining. "Yeah?" She nods, leaning into his body a little more. "Maybe you have a point," he murmurs, tipping her head back with his fingertips so he can kiss her gently.

"I wish all of you damn people would get a damn room," Mercedes comments pointedly from her seat just behind Finn and Rachel. Rachel chooses to ignore her, slipping her hand into Finn's hair and brushing her lips against his again.

Mr. and Mrs. Hummel (which is how Rachel thinks of them, regardless of the fact that they've each asked her repeatedly to call them Burt and Carole) invite Rachel over to spend Christmas Eve with their family, a gathering that feels like a very special thing to have be a part of. It's like she's part of the family, with her boyfriend and her best friend (even if things with Kurt have been a little tense over the past few months for various reasons), and their parents have never made Rachel feel anything but perfectly welcome in their home.

Their blended family has combined most of their individual traditions for the holiday season, so after dinner, they all go into the family room to sit near the Christmas tree, just in front of the burning fireplace. (Rachel and Finn exchange a little look when he sits on the floor next to the ottoman she's sitting on. The room is always going to be a special place for them.) When Finn was younger, his mom used to let him open on gift on Christmas Eve, and when Kurt was growing up, his dad always let him have his stocking stuffers. Now they do both, and since Rachel is here this year, she gets in on some of the fun. She even has her own stocking that hangs from the mantle. It's deep blue with bits of silver woven throughout, topped with soft-looking white faux-fur. It's lovely, and she knows that Finn's mother got it especially for her.

She and Kurt already exchanged gifts, and she and Finn are waiting to exchange theirs at the end of Hanukkah (Finn's idea, and she didn't have to heart to tell him that gifts aren't really a part of Hanukkah), but Finn's mom gives her a cookbook filled with vegan desserts. "Finn mentioned that you like to bake, and some of those recipes look really delicious," Mrs. Hummel explains. Rachel's stocking is full of small, random items, ranging from a bottle of raspberry pink nail polish to an air pressure gauge for her glove box. ("Proper air pressure in your tires is important," Mr. Hummel tells her seriously. "Finn can show you how to use it.")

Once all of the gifts have been opened, Kurt disappears to call Blaine, and Mr. Hummel agrees to help his wife clean up the kitchen, leaving Finn and Rachel alone in front of the fireplace. He gets up on his knees in front of her and kisses her gently. "Santa left you another present," he murmurs against her lips.

She lifts an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

He nods and tugs her with him when he stands, leading her up the stairs to his bedroom. He pushes open the door and stands to the side to let her go in first.

Once inside, she sees a little bunch of mistletoe, tied with a gold ribbon, attached to the headboard of Finn's bed along with a string of glowing twinkle lights that's been wound through the slats. "I see Santa's been delivering mistletoe again," she comments.

Finn grins, pushing the door almost completely closed. "This mistletoe is the way he intended for it to be."

This entire game with the mistletoe has been incredibly silly, but it's also sweet and not a little romantic, and on top of all of that, she loves kissing Finn. It's been nice to have an excuse to do it a little more often, if it did turn into something very different for all of their friends.

She takes Finn's hands in hers and walks backwards to the bed. "Well, we can't disappoint Santa, now can we?" she asks, looking up at him through her eyelashes when she perches on the edge of the bed and starts pushing herself back to the pillows.

Finn follows, crawling up her body and smiling down at her. "I love you," he whispers just before he kisses her.

Usually, she likes to say the words back, but this time, she shows him instead.