The Best Worst Christmas Ever

The story opens on Christmas Eve with three disconsolate children sadly scrolling social media as a snowstorm rages outside their home. Their beach vacation was canceled due to the weather and their mood is sour as they find reasons to complain to their father about their siblings. Things take a turn for the worse when the power goes out and the internet goes down.

Dad suggests that the children put together what he calls "Desperation Dinner" in an effort to inject some fun into the night while using up food before it can spoil. Each child is given a course and the liberty to put together whatever they want, no rules. Parker (age 17) offers a soup consisting of rapidly-melting ice cream and cookies, candy, and peanuts as "crackers." Candace (age 14) follows with the main course, grilled cheese in the fireplace with deli meat and pickles, jam, and olives as additives. Lily (age 6) finishes with dessert, s'mores made with tortillas.

With the mood lightened, Dad convinces the reluctant children to make up their own Christmas story. Dad makes hot chocolate with a secret ingredient. Lily starts and has Santa summon her to the North Pole for a special mission, finding his stolen box. She introduces a fairy as her companion.

Candace follows and tells of Lily and the fairy sledding to a village where they meet up with her and follow a clue to a shop run by a part gnome, elf, and unicorn. Parker continues with the introduction of more mystical creatures and deepens the mystery.

When it comes to Dad's turn, he takes features introduced by the children and starts the story over. This time, Candace becomes the main character but the fairy soon joins her, as do the other children. She begins in her own bedroom bemoaning her loss of the joys of Christmas but attempts to pull herself out of her funk by making lists of what she likes about the holidays categorized by the five senses. She falls asleep and wakes up at the North Pole with Santa waiting for her. He asks her to find his missing box but won't say what's in it.

Candace and the fairy, now named Sprig, float to the fairy's town in a magical bubble, where they meet Lily. They take a treacherous sled ride to the "Town of No Name," where they follow a clue to a spice shop run by an old gnome. He tells them of a creature of interest carrying a book and sends them to a library, but not before Parker joins them. The librarian is a female version of the spice shop gnome. A pattern of missing books on a shelf turns out to be a map which directs them to a square with a gnome choir. A dropped piece of choral music is discovered to be musical cryptography, which when deciphered sends them to a tea shop with a giant Christmas tree. The pattern of the tree's lights are another map, which they follow through the town. To their dismay, they end up back at the tea shop where a mage is waiting for them. She casts a spell that sends the children to an ice cave with snowmen directing traffic, then a village of elves with distinctive colored homes, which hold the clue they need to get past trolls and dragons guarding bridges. Ultimately they end up finding the box and returning it to Santa, who opens it. It appears empty, but the children realize that it was the journey, which forced them to work together and come together, that was what they were sent to find.

Just as Dad finishes the story, the power and WiFi come back on. Instead of going back to their devices, Candace turns out the lights and returns to the fire. Candace and Parker recognize that the story brought them together just as it did their fictional namesakes, and promise to explain it to Lily. They ask about the secret ingredient for the hot chocolate; Dad tells them it was already added, which of course was the Christmas spirit. When they taste it, they're astonished at how good it is and decide this was the best Christmas they ever had.