Eleanor
- Eleanor sleeps in on Christmas Day. Her mom comes in to tell her she'll talk to Richie about letting Eleanor go away to her uncle's, but Eleanor says she wants to stay. She pretends to go back to sleep.
Park
- Park also sleeps in on Christmas Day. Everyone's waiting for him to open presents, including a new "KISS ME, I'M IRISH" shirt. His dad gives him an empty key ring—Park's sixteen, but he doesn't care about getting his license. He doesn't want to give up any time with Eleanor.
- Eleanor's told him she shares a room with all of her siblings, and can't risk sneaking out again.
- They sit on the back steps of the school talking about Eleanor's siblings, Park still holding her hand. He realizes he's never touched Eleanor "anywhere below the chin or above the elbow," but it doesn't seem to matter—he doesn't want to upset her, and besides, "her hands and face were excellent" (33.38).
- Eleanor tells Park her siblings are crazy. Maisie, she says, is "mean. And she fights like a street person" (33.44). Park asks if Richie hates them, too, and Eleanor tells Park she doesn't want to talk about Richie. She says that Richie hates everyone, especially her mom, and when Park wonders why her mom doesn't leave, Eleanor says, "I don't think there's enough of her left" (33.64).
- Park asks Eleanor if she's scared of Richie. Eleanor says no, but she just has to be "invisible" (33.70).
Eleanor
- Eleanor has Christmas dinner with her family. The food is great, because Eleanor's mom is a great cook if she actually has good ingredients. She makes a special dessert that she only ever makes at Christmas.
- Richie had been drinking all day, in "the kind of good mood that was just on the edge of a bad one. They were all waiting for him to cross over…" (33.83), which he does as soon as he sees what Eleanor's mom cooked for dessert. Instead of making pumpkin pie, she made rice pudding, Eleanor's grandmother's recipe. Richie hurls the bowl of rice pudding against the wall. He drives off to buy pie, and Eleanor's mom serves the pudding to everyone.