The best part of this book was the realistic sister dynamic, both with the little girls and with their mother and the protagonist. However, it's hard to get into the Christmas spirit when everyone has grief over deaths and abandonments - this tiny Idaho town has had way too much tragedy, and it stopped feeling relevant when the same backstory would get told, again. And if Natalie was really always in love with her brother's best friend, why don't we see any evidence of that in backstory/memories? It's a very "tell" rather than "show" story.