“Justin, stop pouting. We’re not going anywhere so you may as well accept it like the rest of us.”

Justin turned his hard blue-eyed stare from the window and trained it on JC rather than his reflection that was being mottled by falling snow on the other side of the window. It piled high on the ledge of the window and was a visual reminder that they were stuck in those four walls.

“We’re not supposed to be here, Jace,” Justin reminded him. Surely JC hadn’t lost his mind like the rest of them. Accept it? Accept that they were stuck in Germany on Christmas? With no chance of making it home at all? How was he just supposed to accept that? It was impossible. Unethical, even! “We’re supposed to be at home. With our families!”

“I get that,” JC said calmly. He placed a hand on Justin’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You don’t think that we want to be with our families too?”

Justin shrugged away from JC’s grip. “Then why are you so calm about it? Why aren’t you upset?”

JC rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s beyond our control,” he replied with a heavy sigh. “We can’t make the weather change. We can’t make the planes fly in the air. We can’t do anything but call our folks, let them know what’s going on and that we love them and we’ll be back as soon as we can. Yeah, we have to miss Christmas with them but at least we’re warm and safe.”

Justin huffed a breath through his nose. Leave it to JC to try and get him to see reason in all of this. To try and get him to understand the situation. Why couldn’t he just let him be mad? Sure, they had their first album recorded and under their belts and a tour that they were currently in the middle of to support said album and they had many things to be happy about but not this. Not when his and Lance’s mothers flew home before them to get their homes ready for the holidays to wind up not having their children around for it.

This wasn’t supposed to happen during Christmas.

“Aww, is Baby J still pouting like a baby?” Chris taunted as he sauntered into the hotel room. The pom-pom end of the Santa hat on his head swung with every step that he took. Justin’s eyes narrowed at the bounce in his gait and the smile on his face.

“I’m no baby,” Justin grumbled. “I just want to go home.”

“Yeah, so do the rest of us but you don’t see us pouting and stomping about,” Chris replied. He reached out, pinched Justin’s cheek between his finger and thumb, and shook it as he grinned. “Wook at the wittle Gwinch. Someone is getting coal in his stocking.”

Justin slapped Chris’s hand away and rubbed his cheek. “Someone’s getting a black eye,” he growled. Justin prickled at the sight of Chris and JC sighing and exchanging that look with one another. The one that they always gave each other when they suspected that he was being a “brat”, or so they claimed. They never stopped pointing out how much younger he was compared to them. “Look, just leave me alone.”

The door to JC’s and Justin’s hotel room swung open again and this time Joey and Lance came through. Lance’s lips were pressed together in a straight line and a troubled expression sat on his face. Joey, in comparison, had a large smile on his face as he walked behind Lance. A hat was clutched in his hands and Justin could see little slips of paper nestled inside.

“We’re not getting out of the hotel either,” Lance announced. “There’s too much snow so going to a restaurant is out. We’re here all day.” Justin threw his arms into the air and began to pace. “C’mon, J, it’s not all that bad.”

“Yeah! We can still have a Christmas around here,” Joey agreed, shaking the bag. “We can do Secret Santa. And this will be the fun part: we can only get each other gifts that come from the hotel.”

“How’s that fun?” Justin grumbled.

“Because you can’t just buy them something they said they wanted. This way it can be personal. That’s the challenge.” Joey plucked a piece of paper from the hat, glanced at it, and then shoved it into his pocket before passing it to Lance. Lane took a slip of paper and then passed the hat on over to Justin. Begrudgingly, he grabbed a piece of paper from the hat and barely glanced at it as he passed the hat over to Justin.

This was stupid. This was all stupid. He didn’t see the point in trying to get gifts for one another when they were stuck in Germany in a hotel and they couldn’t leave. He was sure that even if any of them ventured out nothing would be open that day. It was just another one of Joey’s harebrained ideas. Since when did any of them actually work out?

“Okay, now that we got all of the names we have”—Joey paused to glance at the clock on the wall—“two hours to find something. Then we’ll all meet back here and present gifts. Asking the concierge and anyone else on the staff for help is allowed. You can’t trade any names and you can’t give away who you’re looking for.”

“This is so stupid,” Justin muttered under his breath right as Chris announced that he would bulldoze anyone that tried to get in his way to look for gifts. Justin could only stand back and watch in awe as Joey and Chris raced each other out of the door to the hotel room. Chris almost knocked Joey into the wall in his attempt to get out first. The sight made Lance and JC crack up. Justin’s face never broke his frown.

“Why not try and make the best of it?” Lance asked Justin. “Remember that time we were the only ones in an airport? With he Pixi Stix? That was fun, wasn’t it?” He lightly knocked Justin’s shoulder.

He had to fight a smile. That day was fun, even though it sucked being stuck in an airport without their bags for hours on end. It was a good thing that Chris had a package of Pixi Stix in his bag or else they would all have gone crazy with boredom. He didn’t even remember whose idea it was to go running around after eating a fistful at one time—hell, it probably was his idea for all he knew—but it was something about boredom, candy, and a video camera that made them all go a little nuts.

Was this was what cabin fever was like? Were they all going stir crazy to think that making the best of their situation was the only solution? Justin set his jaw. Fine, he’d go along with their plan but he wasn’t going to go down easy. Not this time.

Not when he had a mother waiting for him.

There were signs that Whirlwind Chris had been in the lobby by the time that Justin made his way down there. He let his bandmates go first, opting to give some time to Joey’s plan and think about what he was going to get his Secret Santa. It made his head hurt, trying to think of something to get with such limited resources. Especially when he had already bought and wrapped their gift and had been waiting to give it to them at the airport in Orlando before they went their separate ways.

But then he pushed that aside because that wasn’t important in his one-track mind at the moment. Getting home was. Being in Tennessee to see his family and his friends was more important and he figured, the fastest way to get that to happen was to go straight to the person that knew their schedules and how to work travel agents better than him.

“Justin, I’m sorry, there’s just no way,” Johnny sighed. His breath made the ribbons of smoke lifting off the surface of his steaming coffee bend over for a few seconds. The two sat in the back booth of the hotel’s restaurant. Soft Christmas music was playing from the stereo that had been situated in the room. From where they sat Justin could see the large Christmas tree from the lobby. What once was a symbol that stood for a time of year that put him in a good mood now felt as if it was mocking him.

“Are you sure?” Justin urged. “Maybe you haven’t tried hard enough.”

Johnny laughed. “Justin, I tried as hard as I can. It’s out of my hands. No one is flying out. Not only that, we can’t even leave the hotel. The roads are closed.” Chuckling he added, “Unless you’d like to walk all the way to America.”

Justin’s shoulders sagged. He didn’t have any effort left to sigh, huff, frown, or pout. His emotions and energy levels were low enough that, well, he didn’t see the point anymore. Johnny, the man who could get them anything, failed him. Maybe they really were stuck. Maybe they really couldn’t get home. It was one thing to hear it from his friends but it was another to hear it from Johnny Wright of all people.

He had begun to open his mouth when he saw it in the distance. Chris. With his back flat against a wall. Shuffling down the hallway. Looking this way and that as if on a battlefield of sorts. With furrowed eyebrows, Justin watched as Chris dove towards the ground, army crawled, lay flat on his stomach to roll around, and then ran off. His state of confusion was broken when Johnny spoke up.

“There will be other Christmases, Justin,” he said.

“I know,” Justin admitted. “But I just wanted to be there.”

“What makes this Christmas so special?”

Justin shrugged. “Nothing really. I just want to be home with my family. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“And what makes you think the others—Lance, Joey, JC, Chris—have seen theirs?” Justin’s eyebrows furrowed. Johnny held his gaze. “You want to see your family so badly. Did you ever stop to think that those boys are in the same boat as you are? That they want to be home and see their families just as much as you do? That they want to have the Christmases they’re used to instead of being away from their homes even longer than they were supposed to be?” Johnny hummed as Justin pressed his lips together. He blew on his coffee, took a sip, and then set his mug down. “I’m just saying, you’re not the only one suffering today. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing out on, why not create some new memories and enjoy the time you have with your friends now. Don’t you boys always say you think of each other as family? So, in a way, you’re not away from your family at all.”

Justin’s cheeks burned from the biting cold by the time he made it back to the hotel an hour later. He had to go for a walk after Johnny unloaded on him. It wasn’t a scolding, Johnny never scolded them nor did he ever raise his voice, but I felt like it all the same. He felt as if he had disappointed a father figure, and that was worse than having anyone mad at him.

There he was, whining and moaning and he didn’t even give a second thought to his friends and how they were feeling. As bad as, if not worse than, him of course. After all they were in the same boat facing the same rough seas. Wasn’t it better to stay together as a group than to venture off alone?

Justin stomped his boots on the mat once he entered the hotel. The heat inside thawed his reddened, cold cheeks. The sparse decorations that filled the lobby seemed brighter, more jolly somehow. He accepted the complimentary cookie that the lady at the front desk offered him and made a beeline for the elevator. He had picked out his Secret Santa’s gift an hour ago, during his walk. He just hoped the recipient liked it.

“Well it’s about time!” Chris burst out as soon as Justin opened the hotel room door. “Nice of you to finally join us, Princess. You ready to attend your ball?”

“Ha ha,” Justin laughed sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. He stepped further into the room while removing the scarf from around his neck. “If I’m the princess what would that make you? The ugly…stepbrother…?”

His words died off as he looked around the hotel room. What was once a plain, standard looking room now was decked out in holiday decorations? A large tree sat in the corner of the room, strings of light hung from the branches, baubles reflected images off its shiny surface. Garland hung off the headboards and lying on the floor—which Justin assumed was due to a lack of a fireplace—were tube socks with their names written on it in black sharpie.

“What in the world?” he uttered while looking around.

“Merry Christmas from your Secret Santa,” Chris said as he waved his arms in a flourish. “You better like it; it was a bitch getting this tree in here.”

Justin laughed and shook his head. Leave it to Chris to ruin such a sentimental moment. Justin’s laugh turned to a snort as he got a closer look at the tube socks to see that they were stuffed with newspapers to appear plump. “Wait a second,” Justin said, turning around to the tree. “Have I seen this tree before?”

“Duh, it’s from the lobby,” Chris replied.

Justin, Joey, Lance, and JC all wore identical looks that was a mixture of shock and confusion. Chris revealed his news almost as calmly as he would say that he had ten toes. JC was the one to finally break the silence.

“Chris…how did you get the tree out of the lobby?” he asked.

“Wellll,” he dragged out, “it wasn’t easy.” He rubbed his chin and then added, “I’m not entirely sure it was legal either. But hey! You got your tree. You got your Christmas. You can stop pouting now.”

“Thanks, dude,” Justin said softly. Beaming in triumph, Chris turned to the selection of food that had been brought up by room service. Justin’s smile faded as he leaned closer towards JC, lowered his voice and asked, “How much jail time will we get for this?”

“Much longer than we should considering what it was that was stolen,” JC replied. “But we may be given a few more because of Chris.”

“Yeah.” Justin shuffled his feet against the carpet and sighed. “Look, C, I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have snapped at you guys. I know you want to be with your families today too. It wasn’t cool of me to be so self-centered. I just—”

“Miss your mom, I know,” JC interrupted him. Justin’s eyebrows lifted and he chuckled. “You’re not that hard to figure out. Plus, you always get in a bad mood when you’re separated from her for too long. We get it, really. It’s just…we’re family too. At least, we like to think we are.”

“You are,” Justin replied. “You’re like my brothers. Just took me a bit to remember that. I mean, if I can’t be with my actual family you guys are just as good.”

“Gee, thanks,” JC said with a roll of his eyes. “Okay, let’s have some of the food before Chris eats all of the cookies.”

Justin didn’t follow JC right away. Instead he pulled Lance and Joey aside and said, “Okay, which one of you had JC as your Secret Santa? I need to trade you.”