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This is the first chapter of a holiday series that will run for seven days and end on Christmas.

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“Don’t go downstairs,” Kristen warned her brother, sitting at the top of the stairs. “Doug and Dana are at the kitchen table talking. Doug’s smoking, so you know it’s serious. Dana’s got a glass of wine. She put it in one of the colored aluminum tumblers so it’s not obvious it’s wine. But it is.”

Kyle Nolan was put off by the warning, and by the way his older sister referred to their parents by their first names. It sounded odd. It sounded disrespectful. The last year or two—ever since she’d hit high school, really—Kristen had become edgy. It might have had something to do with Mason McCulloch hanging around the house all the time. Or the fact that once she started returning his attention, they both became harder to be around.

Nonetheless, Kyle was perplexed. He wanted to go downstairs, grab a Coke, and watch TV—but the last thing he wanted was to walk into a minefield of his mom and dad arguing or raising their voices. Recently, they’d done more of that. Usually it was about money, but often it involved Kristen, or the friends she was hanging around with, or Mason McCulloch being over at the house. Sometimes it was just general disagreement. His mom thought they should go to church more often. His dad enjoyed his weekends free of the encumbrances of organized religion—or even the unorganized version practiced at Second Baptist Church of Fort Stockton.

Kyle’s dad taught history at Jim Bowie High School. Seeing his students five days a week was plenty; he preferred not to see them again on Sunday mornings. His mom was a stay-at-home mother and wife. By Sunday she was stir-crazy and wanted to spend time with other adults, even if it meant sitting through Brother Bob’s admonishments about drinking, fornicating, and coveting—all of which she could stay home and enjoy without his input.

The compromise involved going to church about three times a semester (never after report cards came out) and every holiday—just the religious ones, not Memorial Day, Labor Day, or anything involving a President.

“Any idea what’s being discussed?” Kyle asked. He wanted all the intel he could gather before risking a descent into the fray. If it was just the standard argument about whether they should’ve gone into hock for 36 months for the new Country Squire, he might risk it for a Coke. But if it involved Kristen and possible disciplinary action, he’d rather not overhear. Better to wait for the official rollout and then treasure it later when it was just the two of them—so he could rub it in properly.

“Christmas, I think,” Kristen said. “I’ve only caught snippets. But I think it involves the holidays.”

“The whole ‘money is tight’ thing and whether or not to put Christmas on the credit card this year?” Kyle asked.

“No,” Kristen said. “I heard that one last week through the heater vent in my room. This is new. They’re talking in low voices, so I can’t make out specifics.”

“Have you tried the vent?”

“Nothing. You may need to go down and run reconnaissance. Doug’s on his third cigarette, so it must be big.”

Kristen looked worried—and she wasn’t one normally given to much worry, or even deep thought.

When Kyle went downstairs into the kitchen, the talking stopped. That wasn’t a good sign, but no one told him to go back upstairs, so he took advantage of the ambivalence. After opening the Coke and putting the bottle opener back in the drawer next to the Harvest Gold refrigerator, he asked, “What’re y’all talking about?” It seemed best to go straight in and catch them off guard.

Doug and Dana exchanged a look across the Formica-topped table. Then his dad said, “Talking about Christmas. Maybe taking the new Country Squire up to Michigan to see your grandmother. It’s been a while.”

Indeed it had. The last time the family made the trek to Michigan, Kyle had been in first grade, Kristen in fourth, and little Kim just a twinkle in Doug’s eye. He remembered it as a long, hot trip in a car with no air conditioning, he and Kristen fighting over backseat territory like it was disputed land. That’s when Doug and Dana first discovered Kyle was prone to carsickness.

The payoff was seeing his grandmother in the house where his dad and two uncles had grown up. Ferndale, a suburb of Detroit, was like a foreign country to a kid born and raised in Fort Stockton, Texas. The people talked funny, the houses were old and had basements, and there were trees—so many trees.

“I’ve got two weeks at Christmas,” his dad said, looking back at Dana. “We could make it a leisurely drive. We’ve got a brand-new car, so we don’t have to worry about breakdowns. One of the reasons we bought it was for family trips while the kids are still young. I haven’t been back in years.”

Doug was trying to make a case to himself as much as to his wife, who looked ambivalent at best. “We spent last Christmas with your family,” he added.

“My family is in Amarillo,” Dana shot back. “Not a three-day drive in possible bad weather to stay in a house that’s too small for all of us.”

“We could get a hotel,” Doug said.

“And blow the savings we set aside for a real vacation next year at spring break?” Dana’s voice rose slightly—enough for Kyle to know exactly how the battle lines were drawn.

“Bottom line,” Doug said, “who knows how long my mom’s going to be around? I don’t want to look back and say, ‘I wish we’d have…’ Know what I mean?”

Dana didn’t have a rebuttal for that. Her own parents were aging, and thoughts of their mortality had begun to creep in. She would’ve been upset if Doug denied her time with them. The fact that his father was gone and only his mother was still living made his situation even more pressing.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Tell her we’ll come. We’ll make the best of it. Might be the only chance the kids have to see snow.”

Kyle felt like he’d struck gold and couldn’t wait to share the intel with Kristen. Still, he kept up his fifteen-year-old indifference, grabbed a bag of Cheetos, and bounded upstairs two steps at a time.

“We’re headed to Michigan for Christmas!” he whispered loudly after bursting into Kristen’s room and shutting the door behind him.

“Bullshit!” she screamed. The effortless way Kristen let cuss words roll off her tongue amazed Kyle. It was a talent she’d been honing for years. He hoped one day he’d swear as creatively as she did, but he was still too fearful of parental retribution to get much practice.

“Tell me everything they said. And give me that damn bag of Cheetos.”

Kyle spilled everything he’d overheard with as much detail as he could recall.

Like any teenager, Kristen’s mind immediately flooded with thoughts about how this new development would affect her.What about the Winter Carnival Dance she’d planned to go to with Mason? Would she be allowed to drive part of the trip—she’d had her driver’s license six months now. What would the sleeping arrangements be? Grandma’s house was small. She was not sharing a room with Kyle—she had a pretty good idea of what went on when he was alone. Would she meet any Michigan boys? Would they be different from Mason? Kristen had always had a little crush on Uncle Bobby, her dad’s youngest brother. Would he remember her?

That night, when the whole Nolan family went to bed, only little Kim slept well.

Doug lay awake wondering if he’d made the right decision calling his mother to say they’d come. Michigan was far. Winters were harsh. Three kids and a disgruntled wife in a station wagon—even a new Country Squire—for two weeks could be fraught with minefields. It would be impossible to find them all before they exploded. Then there were his brothers.

Dana lay in bed thinking about her own parents, who seemed smaller and frailer each time she saw them. Her sisters had both moved out of state with their husbands, so caring for her parents would fall to her. On top of three kids, it was a lot. She wasn’t ready to face it, but she knew she’d have to soon.

When Doug rolled over and pressed himself against her back, she knew he was looking for something to make him sleepy and get his mind off Christmas. She hoped pretending to already be asleep would put an end to it. It did—even though he knew she was pretending.

Kyle lay awake thinking about the trip itself. Would they see snow? Would Grandma bake the things he remembered—the smells that filled her house? Would he still get carsick? He hadn’t in a while, but this was a long trip. Would he get to hang out with the cool uncle—or be stuck with the weird one? He also remembered Grandma’s house having only one bathroom. Not a big deal when he was five, but at fourteen, privacy came at a premium.

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The trip to Amarillo for Thanksgiving a week later answered a few questions. Kyle made it there and back in the way-back seat without a single issue, which boosted his confidence for the Michigan run. He sensed tension with his Amarillo grandparents over the Christmas plans, though. He overheard them asking his mom, while doing dishes, “Why can’t she just fly down to Texas?” At fifteen, he wasn’t yet fluent in family politics. That would come later. For now, it all just seemed more complicated than necessary.

On the way home, there was debate in the front seat over whether the house should even be decorated for Christmas.

“We won’t be here,” Doug argued, gripping the black and wood-grain steering wheel till his knuckles went white. “Why drag everything out of the attic just to leave it sitting for two weeks? When we get home, that’s just one more thing to deal with.”

“I’m not the one who wanted to go to the Great White North for Christmas,” Dana said, her voice rising that telltale octave Kyle had learned to dread. “We have never not put up a Christmas tree. This will damn well not be the first year we don’t.” The use of a curse word—even one of the minor ones found in the Bible—meant things had just escalated.

Kristen and Kim in the middle seat, and Kyle in the way-back, all froze as if the Cone of Silence had descended, waiting to see where this skirmish would go.

“Fine.”

That was it—a one-word surrender.

They got home the Friday after Thanksgiving. Decorations went up Saturday morning.

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“What are we going to do with Crocket?” Dana asked as they sat at the Formica table, basking in the glow of Christmas lights on the tree Sunday evening. “I didn’t even think about what we’d do with the dog.”

Crocket was a retriever–boxer mix that Doug had brought home in a weak moment a couple of years before. “Do you know what it’ll cost to board him for two weeks?”

“We’ll take him. He’ll be fine. Mom won’t care.” Doug was again talking to himself more than to Dana. As soon as the words left his mouth, the lights on the tree began to flicker. Then an entire string went out. And then all of them.

“I’ll go to the Rusty Hammer after school tomorrow and buy new lights,” he said. “These are shot.”

Monday night, Doug and Dana took everything off the tree and threw the lights in the trash. Perry Como playing on the stereo only seemed to irritate both of them. Doug smoked half a pack of cigarettes.

Tuesday night they redecorated the entire tree. Dana had two aluminum tumblers of wine. Perry Como remained silent on the stereo—as did all three kids upstairs.

Crocket got into the trash while everyone was distracted and ate some of the unrefrigerated Thanksgiving leftovers. Nobody slept well that night.

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