Underneath The Tree: A Buckingham Nicks Christmas

A Love That's Meant For Me

Santa Monica, California
Christmas Eve
Saturday, December 24, 2022
(7:00 pm)
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Stephanie McVie had photographed every inch of her grandparents' home for Instagram over the years, and she especially loved photographing it at Christmas. Grandma Stevie had been going all out for the holidays, according to her mother, since her first house in Venice Beach in 1976 that she bought when Fleetwood Mac's first tour made her a millionaire combined with Grandpa Lindsey. She'd also, said Julia, gone out and bought a red Mercedes convertible, which she'd only driven until 1978 when her license lapsed because she'd spent three years touring or in the studio and never driven again. But Stephanie had always loved those photos of Grandma Stevie, twenty-eight years old and breathtakingly beautiful, posed beside her new car proudly for Rolling Stone. Stephanie loved both of her grandmothers, but she worshipped Grandma Stevie. To her, from the time she was four and started school and was affixed with the special moon necklace and told - draped in the Bella Donna cape one night when she was sleeping over - that she was a Sister Of The Moon now and part of a very special team, Stephanie McVie had been honored to be a part of the group of women and girls with the necklace and vowed to be just as cool as her grandmother when she grew up.

"Jesus, Steph, you've gotten the tree from so many angles it's going to melt in the light!"

Stephanie heard the voice of her mother behind her and she jumped, almost dropping her phone in its Billie Eilish Happier Than Ever case. She turned around, and Julia was struck by how much her seventeen-year-old daughter looked like her mother. It was as if the young woman who'd posed seductively on the hood of that sports car in 1972 was standing there fifty years later.

"Mom! Jeez! You scared the crap out of me!" Stephanie held up her phone to reveal a beautiful picture of the fiber-optic colored wings of the angel that sat atop the ten-foot tree. "It's for Instagram."

"Imagine that." Julia rolled her eyes but smiled at her daughter, whose photography skills had impressed her from the time she'd gotten her first phone at Christmas the year her parents went on tour so her mother could tell the infamous "Without You" story all over the world. Stephanie had photographed her grandparents - less Christine who had not yet rejoined the band that year - on tour, and she'd shown real talent and a keen eye. Julia had known then what her daughter would grow up to be, and in a family of artists, she'd been encouraged from the beginning.

"Where are they?" Stephanie asked, referring to her grandparents. "It's, like, seven o'clock! Even Tessa and Ruby are here! They're always the last to arrive!"

"I know...those are two apples that didn't fall far from the tree." Julia laughed, thinking of every birthday party she'd had in the 1980s when Uncle Mick would burst in later than late, having been awake for days, still lifting her in the air despite being cripplingly high or hung over or both and calling her Jewel of the Nile and giving her a funny hat to wear and a pocket full of cash to keep secret from her parents and siblings because it was just for her. She sighed, wine glass in one hand and phone in the other. "They will be here by dinner. That's what Grandpa said."

"I'm going to go find Tessa and show her the pics," Stephanie announced, leaving her mother standing at the tree. Julia looked down when her phone buzzed in her hand, and smiled at the name of the sender of the text message on her screen. Jodie McVie. She swiped open the text.

Is it sacrilegious on Christmas to tell one's wife she looks absolutely scrumptious standing at the tree? If it is and I'm naughty then so be it. You look like a million bucks tonight, Jules.😉❤️

Julia turned around to see her husband standing by the fireplace, engaged in conversation with Uncle Christopher and Uncle Mick. They smiled at each other from across the room, and she held up her phone for effect before typing a reply.