“Ha.” Mom leaned on the front door to open it up, but it must have locked. “I don’t think I even knew what a latte was until I was in my twenties.” My mind flipped. She put down the box and got out her phone to search for something. “This”—she held out a picture that looked like a film set—“was home at Christmas.”

Wow. It was a picture of a perfect little village, all cute, jumbled houses, a Christmas tree with simple lights in the middle of some untouched snow. I zoomed in as Mom fished out the door key.

“And you’re sure you didn’t just search ‘cutest Christmas town ever’?”

“Would I?”

“Can you send it to me?”

“Sure—it was the year we got snowed in. We were on the national news and everything.” She laughed to herself. “The poor woman who came to cover it got her car stuck and ended up having to stay in my best friend’s house. I don’t think she’d ever left London before!” She laughed even more. “Shouldn’t laugh really…” But she was. And so was I.

“I’d love to visit one day.” I said it quietly, as Mom always talked about going, but we all knew we didn’t have the kind of money that could pay for a family trip, especially with Grams needing help here.

“One day.” She nodded. “And back in reality—what about Christmas here? It’s always a busy time, right?”

I didn’t say anything, as I knew she was taking a scenic route to the point. “Reckon Alpine Peaks will be as good as Nashton for parties?”

What she meant was, was I going to get any invites?

Have any plans?

I slapped on my happy game face—it came so naturally these days.

“Guess we’ll see. I’m sure there will be stuff going on.” I wasn’t—unless Nick took me somewhere with him, which seemed as unlikely as finding out Santa Claus was switching his sleigh for an Uber. Mom smiled, but I could tell I hadn’t stopped her from worrying.

Crash. “ARGHHHHH!”

We looked at each other, and in perfect unison, said the exact same thing.

“Dad.”

And we dropped our boxes to run.

But when we got to the front of the house, the only sign of him was some extreme cursing coming from behind Mary and Joseph, my brother doubled over laughing, and the nosy neighbor looking even less impressed than before.

I left Mom to deal with it and headed inside to set up at the bottom of the massive winding staircase.

Just me, myself, and one zillion candy canes.