Summary
Netflix Series Three Days of Christmas Season 1, Episode 1 opens up the 3-part story with the sisters birthing a dark family secret.
This recap of Netflix Series Three Days of Christmas Season 1, Episode 1 contains significant spoilers. You can read the season 1 review by clicking these words.
Three Days of Christmas opens up with one of the sisters running out to the woods to investigate a tree. She claims “I’m first” and as she rubs away the dirt and dust of an old tree we see Esther, Adela, Maria and Valentina engraved in the bark.
Episode 1 then reaches back to the past. Maria, one of the sisters, has gone out to ice skate at the lake. Esther and Adela are worried that their father (Carles Arquimbau) will find out. The girls pretend to go out and collect wood and fortunately they find her.
But they do come across a ragged man and woman. The man asks the girls to hide his daughter, named Valentina. Esther, Adela and Maria feel they have no choice, threatened by the man’s aggressive body language. They hide Valentina in the shed.
Doctor Juan arrives at the household for Christmas day. Adela is infatuated by him. Juan speaks to Adela and compliments her politely but says there’s a misunderstanding — “I’m not the one for you Adela”. Adela pretends she has no interest, but then lists all the times he has shown up randomly. Juan hints he’s here for another woman.
The father notices that Esther has a necklace around her neck, and believing it is her mother’s, takes it off her. Meanwhile, Maria begs Valentina not to leave the shed. She learns that Valentina’s mother is dead. Juan comes to treat her secretly in the shed. When Adela leaves the shed, she tells Esther than Juan is in love with her and that she hates her sister.
Before the family meal begins for Christmas day, Esther’s mother asks her where she found the necklace. The mother claims she had lost in a long time ago after Esther confesses to going out to the lake to find Maria.
At the meal, the Grandfather talks about the evil man on the run and the police looking for him. The Uncle’s girlfriend claims that the man is dead but they are still looking for the girl, his daughter. The father and grandfather repeatedly clash over dinner.
The turning point of Episode 1 is when Juan and Valentina barge through the front door during the meal as he struggles to control her. The father asks why this girl was in the shed. Juan confesses that it is the daughter of the evil man, but the mother demands that they do not go to the police.
Tensions run high in Episode 1. A police car heads to the house and the father insists that they should turn her in. The grandfather asks his son to make him proud. The police chief arrives and sits at the dinner table and begins eating. He acts odd, making the tension in the room unbearable as Valentina is hidden under a table. Eventually, the chief gets out a scarf and says there is blood on it — it’s Maria’s scarf. The chief keeps asking the family where the girl is and when they deny all knowledge, he says Merry Christmas and asks Maria to sing a Christmas song. While Maria sings, the chief raids the house and then shoots through the table. It was the wrong table. Adela tells the chief that the girl is upstairs, and while distracted, the sisters and their mother take Valentina down to the lake.
At the frozen lake, it’s clear that Valentina’s father is not going to show up. The chief reaches the lake and points a gun at the sisters and Valentina. The ice cracks beneath him and he falls into the freezing water. The family let the police chief die. A dark family secret is born.
Three Days of Christmas Season 1, Episode 1 ends with the mother asking Valentina to come home to eat.
You can read the recap of the second episode by clicking these words
