AVERY: Being married to Jim meant champagne toasts, luxury empires, and billion-dollar deals. But this Christmas? It meant being married to a man who signed off on a charcuterie board and called it a holiday.

No party. No magic. Just Scrooge in a Tom Ford suit. And I'd had enough. With a little help from my friend, Cat Veléz, the most ruthless luxury event architect in California. I was determined to remind my husband that Christmas wasn't a line item. It was something you felt.



JIM: In my defense . . . it was a very nice charcuterie board. Apparently, that doesn't count. Turns out, my wife didn't want a gift basket. She wanted me.

And when my brother, Jake, and the doctors at St. John's all started calling me Scrooge . . . and my wife started looking at me like I was Clark Griswold's tight-fisted boss? That's when I realized I hadn't just screwed up Christmas. I'd screwed up with her.

Now Avery and Cat are plotting a holiday coup. Snow machines, rooftop galas, fir trees flown in by private jet.

I'd built an empire. But saving Christmas—and my marriage—wasn't going to take money.

It was going to take me proving to Avery that beneath the Scrooge act, I was still her Mr. Mitchell.