Christmastime had, somehow, eluded Eddie's attention this year. Though the Losers had all gotten together for Thanksgiving, another major facet of the holiday season, and they were now well into December, Christmas keeps slipping his mind. It’s not that Christmas for him had ever been *bad*. If anything, he'd say the holiday had always been...unremarkable. More often than not, Sonia would take them to stay with her sisters in Augusta for the holiday. Eddie would get his cheeks pinched red, be told what a sweet, quiet boy he was, but so small maybe he should eat more. He was left to his own devices, for the most part, while his mother discussed the woes of being a single mother, especially to a boy with such a fragile constitution, and his aunts hummed and hawed in sympathy. Christmases with Myra were an equally dull and guilt inducing affair, albeit with a bit more festive flair, as she insisted on decorating every spare inch of their home with tinsel and lights and figurines. She cooked more than Eddie could ever hope to eat, for once not harping on his dietary restrictions, and when it came time to open gifts she always proved disappointed that he hadn’t somehow developed the ability to read her mind to get her exactly what she wanted.

But, he isn't spending Christmas with his mother and he certainly isn't spending it with his ex-wife. He is, strangely enough, spending it with his best friend, since he had entered something of a roommate (question mark? it seemed an odd thing to say at forty) situation with Richie entirely on impulse after leaving New York in the wake of his messy divorce, and he'd yet to be booted out the door. Now that he thinks about it, he couldn't honestly say how *Richie* felt about Christmas, not in adulthood anyway. That's what prompted Eddie to look up from his laptop (not like he was focusing on it, anyway), clearing his throat. "Do you think we should decorate?"