Underneath The Tree: A Buckingham Nicks Christmas

You Are Near And Everything's Clear

Santa Monica, California
Christmas Eve
Saturday, December 24, 2022
(9:00 pm)
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"Holy shit! Did you two come by way of the North Pole?"

It was Sara's husband Jason who noticed the Mercedes pulling into the driveway. He was standing on the front landing, smoking a cigarette and scrolling through his phone, and he'd been tapping his foot along with "Step Into Christmas" by Elton John spilling out from the party inside before he saw Stevie and Lindsey pull up to the house they'd owned for fifteen years, the same house that had been a creative zoo throughout 2010 while Stevie was making the In Your Dreams album and documentary with Dave Stewart. It was there, as one of Dave Stewart's sound engineers, where he had first laid eyes on an almost-twenty-two year-old Sara Buckingham, hair dyed pink and shouting at her mother that she was not going to spend her birthday locally when she could go to Hawaii where Uncle Mick didn't judge her every move.

He'd fallen in love with her immediately.

"I think the bigger question here is why there's a cigarette in your mouth, Jason!" Stevie said, a look of shock on her face. "You're having a baby soon!"

"I'm getting it out of my system before April," said Jason. He kissed and hugged his mother-in-law and whispered, "If you want one let me know."

Stevie, who'd quit smoking as her New Years resolution in 1996, whispered back, "I just might, hon. I'll catch you later." She winked at him before he moved on to greeting Lindsey.

The party was in full swing, and Stevie and Lindsey were met with a round of applause and cheers from everyone as they entered the foyer. Julia was the first person to greet them, barreling past her Aunt Lori and cousin Jessi and Waddy Wachtel to her parents.

"How nice of you two to show up at your own party!" Julia teased as she hugged Lindsey and then Stevie. "I held dinner but then Sara said let's do it buffet style and people are eating and..." She looked harried and out of breath until Lindsey touched his daughter's hand.

"You did good, kid," he said. "Don't worry. Party on...all Buckinghams officially in the house."

"Daddy, did you bring the albums?" Amber, champagne glass in hand, approached them. She'd asked her father to bring copies of Rumors and Tusk on vinyl for her new turntable, so she could hear the music her parents had created before she was born with the crackle and pop of album, which Lindsey had told her was the best and most authentic way to listen to music.

"In the trunk," he said with a nod.

Mick Fleetwood, at six-foot-six, towered over the crowd as he approached the growing group of Buckinghams. He hugged Stevie first, saying, "My God, it was starting to look like a missing person's case with you too! What happened?" He shook Lindsey's hand in greeting.

"We had a few things to take care of," Lindsey said. He tried hard not to look Stevie in the eye or they'd both start laughing, but Stevie couldn't stop smiling, and Mick nodded in understanding.

"Ah," said Mick. "Well, more power to ya!" He bowed his head and left with a knowing wink, turning away to go find John McVie in the crowd, reminding himself to cheer up and put away his jealousy for the holiday, but it wasn't easy.

As long as he lived, Mick would always be in love with Stevie. He'd given up fighting it years ago, and he'd decided that just the masquerade was better.

Stevie wasted no time integrating herself into the party, cornering Karen and talking her ear off while adjusting the music to non-Christmas songs. Lindsey was talking to his brother-in-law Christopher when he heard Stevie's raucous laughter over the Jackson Five version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", and his eyes followed the sound he'd been hearing all his adult life. She was already drinking champagne and laughing at something Sharon Celani had whispered to her, and whatever Christopher was saying stopped traveling to his brain in that moment as he felt that tightening in his heart that he felt whenever he looked across a room and saw Stevie being Stevie, having a good time and holding court - sometimes holding hostages with a long detailed story - and looking so breathtaking that he couldn't believe she could possibly be his wife.

"...and he's coming up on the weekend of Martin Luther King Day so we can spend some time together and maybe take him to the desert and hike or something like that." Christopher Nicks had been talking to Lindsey about his five-year-old grandson, Roman, coming to Arizona for a visit. He quickly realized that, as he had many times in fifty years, Lindsey had zoned out, looking at Stevie. Christopher patted his brother-in-law on the shoulder and said, "It's cool, man. I'll catch you later and we'll light up." Lindsey had been the one to teach him to roll a joint when he was in the ninth grade, and decades later, they still snuck out back at parties to smoke together.

"Yeah...catch you later, Chris." Lindsey was watching Stevie corral her daughters and her niece and her friends to start dancing, and the entire first floor of the house was suddenly filled with the sound of classic disco.

"Everybody go on and dance if you want to...Music makes your body moooooove...well alright!"

The foyer, which had doubled as Stevie's personal dance floor during the making of In Your Dreams in 2010 and during many parties after that, had become the dance floor again, a group of women from their twenties to their seventies in crescent moon necklaces all dancing with abandon and singing along to "Dazz" by Brick, a disco song Stevie had played until everyone was angry at her up in Sausalito in 1976 when it came out.

Lindsey stood and watched Stevie dance with all three of their daughters, pulling their granddaughter Stephanie up to dance too, followed by Tessa and Ruby Fleetwood and then Christine and John's daughter, Olivia. Christine McVie had been gone a month now, and both Jodie and Olivia - as well as John's daughter Molly from his marriage to Julie before they'd reunited during The Dance tour - had been with her on her deathbed in England when she'd shared with them the lyrics to the song she and Stevie had always considered a metaphor for life, "I Hope You Dance". The wound of grief was still fresh for everyone, but they were following Christine's wished to carry on and make their own fun, and watching Stevie set her own grief aside to help the McVies through theirs made him fall in love with her all over again.

He patted the pocket of his leather jacket to be sure his Christmas surprise for Stevie was secured. He would let her dance it out for awhile before he pulled her aside and gave it to her, he decided. She was spinning around like a top with Julia and Stephanie to the music, long golden curls flying around the foyer like her "Gold Dust Woman" cape, and she looked too happy to interrupt.

He would have said he felt like a kid on Christmas, but it was Christmas and he was seventy-three. Still, he figured, the saying fit, because every day of his life had felt like Christmas since Stevie had wandered into his parents' garage for her first band practice with Fritz in 1968, and he knew every day with her would be Christmas for the rest of his life.

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