Underneath The Tree: A Buckingham Nicks Christmas

You're All That I Need Underneath The Tree

Santa Monica, California
Christmas Eve
Saturday, December 24, 2022
(5:15 pm)
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"I can't believe you found that!"

Lindsey sat on the bed and looked up at his wife, who was holding the red envelope in her hand. She had been holding off on dressing for the party, he acknowledged - she still wore gray Ugg slippers with her usual black leggings, and the tattered gray sweater she'd been wearing around the house for so many years he remembered feeling its soft and brand-new cashmere under his fingertips as his hand dropped to her belly to feel the first kicks of their youngest daughter, their surprise baby, Amber.

"It occurred to me today after you left that it's been fifty years," Stevie said, sitting down on the bed beside him. "I can't believe that." From the envelope she extracted a Christmas card with angels on the front of it in white and gold, and above the Dear Stevie written inside was the date - December 24, 1972. It was signed Love & Hope, Lindsey with a message at the bottom - P.S. Read the letter inside and it will all make sense.

"My hands were shaking when I wrote this," Lindsey recalled. He watched as Stevie pulled from inside the card a folded piece of lined white paper and an obviously inexpensive gold-plated ring with a tiny glass diamond in the center. "I wanted to say all of this to you under the tree that night when we were lying there but I knew I didn't have the nerve, so it wrote it all out instead."

"I cried the first time I read this," Stevie recalled. "This was the most incredible gift I'd ever received...and I don't just mean the ring...my God, Linds, the beautiful things you wrote..."

"Let's hear it, angel," Lindsey said. "Read it."

"Get ready for me to cry again," she said, and she unfolded the paper. She stretched across the length of the bed to retrieve her reading glasses from the nightstand, and began reading the letter Lindsey had written to her fifty years before.

My Beautiful Stephanie,

How can it possibly be that it's been two years since I mustered up the courage to take you in my arms and tell you I love you in that motel room? Sometimes it feels like yesterday, but mostly it seems like I've always known you, always loved you, and that this is, like, our fiftieth Christmas together. How strange and beautiful it is that in these past few years you have become my whole world, and how lucky I am that you feel the same way. You are the dream I never thought I'd been dreaming of before but am so happy it came true.

The gifts I have for you under our tree are not the most expensive things in the world, but I chose them with care and with you in mind and I hope you like them. But...in this envelope I have enclosed another gift. It's a special one. It may not be worth any money, but it means something, and I want you to know from me exactly what that is. You know I'm not the best at explaining myself and how I feel when we talk, so I'm writing it down for you now.

I am in love with you, Stephanie Lynn Nicks. Pure and simple. I love everything you are and everything you do. I love your voice. I love your tiny hands. I love the way your hair shines in the sun and makes you look like you're wearing a halo. I love the way you giggle when you're stoned and when you're not. I love watching you play with the dog and hearing the little voice you use only on her. I love your beautiful poems and helping you turn them into songs. I love the little noises you make late at night in bed when you can't get to sleep, and I love that you always fall asleep a lot faster with my arms around you. I love your soft skin and how you always smell like flowers. I love the modern thinker you are but yet the way you're so much a frustrated part of the last generation, like when I see you sitting there crocheting and admiring antiques. I love how much you love your family. I love watching you and Robin laughing hysterically at stuff only you two would understand. Basically, I love YOU, Stevie, and I can't believe someone as amazing as you could love me too.

Some day this will all have been worth it, and we will be celebrating Christmas in our huge house overlooking the ocean...actually no, not a house but a HOME! I say that because a house is property, but a home is where you are safe and loved, and that's how you make me feel every day. The ring I put in with this letter and card is not real, but one day, I swear to God, I am going to replace it with a real one and I am going to ask you to be my wife, angel. I want to marry you on the ocean and look into your beautiful eyes and promise you forever, then watch you twirl around the dance floor in a beautiful white dress and feed you cake with my fingers and all that bridal mushy stuff. I want us to travel the world together singing our songs and when we get too old to do that, sit on the deck with you and hold hands at night, walk along the shore with our dogs. I want us to have children as beautiful as you opening presents under a big Christmas tree, I want them to bring our grandchildren around to do the same. I want to share the whole world with you and then look back at the pictures of it all when we're old and say damn that was amazing. I have seen what I want my future to be, and I see it all when I look in your eyes.

Please wear this ring and know that I love you, Stevie, and that this is only the beginning. So many Christmases are ahead of us, but this Christmas, I wanted to make sure you knew all of this. The only gift I really want under the tree is you. Merry Christmas, my beautiful Stephanie, and many more.

Love & Hope,
Lindsey

Stevie could barely see the words on the page anymore past her tears. When she looked up, she saw Lindsey's eyes filled with tears too.

"It all came true, sweetheart," she said, reaching out to cradle his face in her hand. "You wrote this fifty years ago today...and look what we're doing tonight...going to our big house on the ocean to be surrounded by kids and grandkids around the tree...we did it, Linds. You called it."

Lindsey smiled, taking her hand from where it lay on his cheek and kissing it. It was her left hand, which held her wedding ring and gigantic diamond engagement ring on one finger and a ring of their children's birthstones on another. He said, "Thank you for wearing my rings all these years, angel...the cheap one and the real ones."

"Thank you for fifty years of being all I need under the tree, sweetheart."

Without saying another word, they leaned in for a kiss, the letter falling from her hand and to the floor as she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him in closer. They were still kissing as they backed onto the bed, falling over onto their sides, Lindsey's fingers digging into the same long golden silk of her hair that he'd been touching all his adult life, Stevie making a sweet little moaning sound as their lips touched and parted softly, sweetly.

They were going to be late getting to their own Christmas party and they knew it.

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