“Please don’t,” I beg when he floats over to me with my coat and boots in hand, having rounded up all the others for a snowball fight. I’m on the top bunk, halfway through a “When You Want To Cry” Spotify playlist. “Let me lie here and be depressed.”

“I can’t do that.” He smiles sadly. “Come on, Betts. Let’s make the most of today.”

“No.” I turn over onto my side. “Today can get bent.”

“If you insist on lying in bed, I’ll have no choice but to bring the fun to you. I can transform this bedroom into an episode of The Adventures of Paddington, ‘Paddington’s First Snow.’ Don’t make me turn you into a cartoon.”

“Fine.” I shove to my feet. “I’ll go throw snow at people! But I refuse to feel cheerful about it.”

“I’m truly sorry.” He clasps my hand, helping me down. “I can’t resist anymore. You have to understand—it’s all pent up inside me.”

It isn’t an easy task, being a Holiday Spirit who physically must spread good feelings. Hall’s need to bring joy will win out over any desire of his. That’s just who he is.

I don my mittens and hat, which naturally he’s knitted for me, with crotchety grumbling. Daytona Beach, I think determinedly. Lorne Michaels. Carl’s Jr. Andromeda Magazine. The Duke of Cambridge. If Hall can’t resist bringing me joy, then it’s up to me to resist feeling it. Today I am going to dwell on the melting ice caps and stranded penguins.

We troop to the front door. When Hall turns the knob and opens it, a snowball flies directly at my chest. Snowballs are whizzing everywhere. “Hey!” I yell. “I’m not ready yet!”

“The safe zone is Mrs. Bannerman’s tombstone,” Hall says, pointing to a foam prop. “We’re split up into two—”

Oh, this sweet, naïve angel. This family doesn’t do teams. I watch Grandma take out Kaia with a snowball aimed at her left leg. When I see Felix and remember him telling me I’m not an actress, I bean him in the head, but he dives toward the tombstone too fast. It’s a souvenir from a role Grandma played in the early 2000s. She was promised by the director that she’d have just as many lines as the lead actor, but the script was rewritten and her character was killed off in the first ten minutes of the movie as the catalyst for the husband’s high-octane revenge tour. Her character didn’t even get a first name. Every few years, some writer or other comes to visit Grandma for an interview, and the publications always include a photo spread of these tombstones stippling the yard—mrs. bannerman, his wife—and Grandma feels vindicated.

Felix’s children and nephews wait in the trees for him to leave the safe zone, then fire the cannons. Years’ worth of rage over watching Felix flirt with their teachers and their friends’ moms is coming out.

Marilou takes pity on him, a knight in puffy pink armor. As Felix hovers behind her, agog at his wife’s accuracy, I think back on the little boy who tried to help me open my presents, who brought me a toy when I was in time-out. How big and open his heart was before chasing fame messed it up.