“You mean turn on the fire? Maxi only has a gas fireplace.”

“Hm.” She wrinkled her nose. “Won’t smell like a real fire. But beggars can’t be choosers.”

“You’re really trying to experience it all, aren’t you?” he said, smiling.

She supposed she was. She wished she had his present to wrap tonight. Because she hadn’t been able to find anything for him in town, she’d gone online while he was at New Horizons and purchased a monogrammed leather carrier for his expensive brushes. Because of the personalization, it would take two weeks to arrive, but she figured she’d just print out a picture of what she ordered and wrap that so he could at least see what it was.

Once they got back to Maxi’s, they put off finishing dinner until they could decorate the tree, since they’d eaten half a sandwich before buying the ornaments and had cookies and hot chocolate after.

“It’s a masterpiece, right?” he said, standing back when the tree was done. “Is this a tradition you’d like to incorporate from now on?”

She watched the lights twinkle between the many ornaments Seth had insisted on purchasing for her and felt, for probably the first time, the magic other people talked about experiencing at Christmas. “Absolutely,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a better day. What about you? Don’t you think it’s been wonderful?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she turned to look up at him. She thought that maybe he was struggling with the whole Christmas thing. But he wasn’t looking at the tree—he was looking directly at her when he said, “I do.”

Seven of Aiyana’s eight sons were home for Christmas—Eli and Gavin with their wives and kids—which made it absolutely chaotic. Sometimes they all talked at once, and they teased, hollered, groaned and laughed as they competed in online games, card games, board games, even who could eat the most pie. Tia was both a little intimidated by the hubbub and enchanted by it. Although there were only three kids in her family, because her mother had had difficulty getting pregnant, most of the Mennonites she’d known had a great deal more children. She was used to big families. But she hadn’t been part of that world for eleven years, and the celebration here was on an entirely different level.

“How are you holding up?” Aiyana asked when she found Tia standing off to one side, watching Seth try to beat Bentley at a new virtual-reality game.

“I’m doing good,” she said.

“It probably seems a bit crazy here.”