Christmas, Hawkins, 1984. All Chief Jim Hopper wants is to enjoy a quiet first Christmas with Eleven, but his adopted daughter has other plans. Over Hopper's protests, she pulls a cardboard box marked ''New York'' out of the basement--and the tough questions begin. Why did Hopper leave Hawkins all those years ago? What does ''Vietnam'' mean? And why has he never talked about New York? Although he'd rather face a horde of demogorgons than talk about his own past, Hopper knows that he can't deny the truth any longer. And so begins the story of the incident in New York--the last big case before everything changed . . .