When Your Christmas is Ugly

I told Brad the other night at dinner that this is the first year in several that I have actual felt even a bit of Christmas joy. Three years ago we mourned the loss of my mother-in-law, Janice, who had died in September. The following year my father-in-law Jon was diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks before Christmas. Last year was our first Christmas without him. Let me say point-blank: Christmas sucked for three years straight.

It’s so easy to get ensnared in the glittery, caroling, ice...