Underneath The Tree: A Buckingham Nicks Christmas

Don't Mean A Thing If You Ain't Holding Me Tight

Santa Monica, California
Christmas Eve
Saturday, December 24, 2022
(8:00 pm)
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"You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear...voices singing let's be jolly...Deck the halls with boughs of holly..."

Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" was playing over the crowd of people eating buffet food and drinking cocktails as Sara Buckingham Carter stepped out onto the deck of her parents' house and found two of her siblings sharing weed from a vape pen. Her laughter was immediate and sounded just like her mother's laughter, and her hand dropped to her pregnant belly over a burgundy velvet tunic top.

"So this is where the cool people are!" Sara exclaimed when she saw Aaron passing the vape pen to Amber. "Jeez...three more months and I'm back in action." After her experience in rehab and her bipolar diagnosis, Sara had found - with help from Aaron and Lindsey - that marijuana at night calmed her nerves and helped her sleep. 

"Haha look who's pregnant!" Amber teased her big sister, the sibling she'd always been closest to. "You can't smoke with us...hahahaha!" She did a little dance in place, and Aaron laughed, coughing on his exhale.

"You suck," Sara said, laughing. "You just watch - once Lindsey Christine Carter comes out and I get my body back, you'd better believe I'll be back in action!"

"So here is the question..." Aaron Morris Buckingham, the spitting image of his father, passed the vape pen back to his little sister. "Where the actual fuck are Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham tonight? Jesus Christ this is weird!"

"Daddy says that they needed a minute."

Julia's voice made them all turn their heads. She was walking towards them from the sliding glass doors, and she took the vape pen from her little sister's hand and inhaled deeply.

"I don't get it," said Sara. "What's going on over there?"

"Same thing that was going on when their bedroom door was locked every Sunday morning when we were kids," Aaron explained, making all three of his sisters laugh. Amber, the youngest at twenty-four and not having experienced her parents in their youth, looked genuinely surprised.

"Seriously?" She looked from Aaron to Julia to Sara, who were all laughing. "Dude! They're over seventy!"

"They're Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham," Julia said, as if that were all the explanation necessary. "Amber! Don't you remember those stories Aaron and I told you about when they attempted to bring us along on The Wild Heart tour?" She was already laughing, and so was Aaron. "I don't care how old they are...our parents set a standard for love and romance and sex that is precisely the reason we all find it so important. I don't know any couple that loves each other like Stevie and Lindsey!"

The collective nod of her siblings told Julia she had a point.

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"Your hair is so pretty like this."

Lindsey was turned on his side, facing Stevie and twirling a long blonde curl around his finger. Stevie had been wearing her hair in long mermaid waves since the pandemic, and she'd looked so beautiful onstage that past year when she wore it that way on her stadium tour that he'd watched and rewatched her performances on YouTube while she was away just to see her. She'd been home for two months, and he had been holding her close in bed every night and telling her she was beautiful and that she was everything to him and he couldn't possibly hold her close enough.

"You've always loved my hair," she said, smiling across to him.

"Because your hair has always been beautiful," he said. "And it smells like green apples and it looks like rays of sunshine." He shifted closer to her to kiss her. They lay in the quiet and stared into each other's eyes for awhile, each of them wondering how they could still feel this way after almost six decades. 

"We have to go, you know," Stevie said after awhile. She could hear Lily and Luna's squeaky toys getting played with in the living room. "I have to feed the dogs and change the water bowls and wee wee pads...get dressed...and then we really have to go."

"I don't want to move from this spot," Lindsey said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. "But you're right...I can feel my phone vibrating and I know it's Julia."

"Yeah..." Stevie sighed, "I guess the jig is up." She kissed his thumb as his hand slowly moved from her face. "I love you."

"I love you too, sweet girl." He kissed her again, and they pulled away with a mutual groan of reality. He took her hand and together they sat up on the bed, photographs of the last fifty years scattered all around them. "Come on, Mrs. Buckingham," he said. "Time to see all the people in these pictures in person and make more memories." He watched her stand up and wrap herself in her robe, and he added, "I'll feed the dogs and all. You get ready first...takes you longer anyway."

Stevie laughed and said, "I'm a woman...it's sort of a given."

"Oh I know you're a woman," he teased. "Now go get ready, my beautiful Stephanie, before I attack you again and we miss our own Christmas party." He winked.

"Dirty old man," she called to him from the bathroom as he heard the shower start running. She popped her head around the doorway and said, "And thank God for that!"

Lindsey laughed and pulled on his pajama pants to go take care of the dogs, his heart so full of love he almost couldn't believe this was his life.

His letter to Stevie fifty Christmases ago had come true more so than he'd ever imagined.

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