My father in law died on Christmas Day in 2000. Not a fun thing to go through on any day of the year of course, but now Christmas is always a bittersweet occasion. Kind of eerie, too, because he sent us a card that year that was an 'across the miles' card that said something like "Even though we can't be together this Christmas...", which at the time we laughed because we told him we'd already planned to go visit him that year, which we did, and then he died. But we still have that card and put it out every year, and now it's just...eerie I guess, but it makes us feel like he's still around. I miss him a lot. I got very lucky with my in-laws - I love them so much! (Well, most of them. There's always that black sheep that nobody can stand...)