Chapter One     If there’s one thing I’ve never been able to do, it’s blend in. Take my stint playing Christmas Tree #7 in my ­fourth-​­grade holiday pageant. Prior to this tragic bit of casting, I was positively elated at the very idea of a holiday pageant. I am one of those people who unabashedly loves the many festive markers of winter: gingerbread and cozy sweaters, mulled cider and mistletoe, jaunty snowpeople and jingle bells. Every time a movie starring multiple Christmassy Vanessa Hudgenses pops up in my Netflix queue, my heart sings just a little bit louder. My big sister Evie thinks this is because there’s so much spectacle associated with the holiday season, so much pomp and circumstance, so many of those famed silver bells jangling their way into people’s ears in the most ostentatious way imaginable. It is true that I never miss a chance to be as extra as ­possible . . . and I suppose the holiday pageant ended up being a prime example of that. I was pissed because Clara Montrose was cast as the ­lead—​­the Sugar Plum Fairy who dances in front of the shuffling line of boring Christmas trees, blessing them…