When our family exchanged joke presents one Christmas Eve, my father, who was trim, got a Slimfast. He turned to my sister's husband, who was less trim, and said: "This must be for you."

My grandmother got a model ambulance, a nod to a recent string of fainting spells that led to ambulance trips, because, it turned out, her medication needed adjusting.

And my mother got my sister's husband a "Rocket Scientist" mug.

That was a lot of Christmases ago. My grandmother and the two Georges, my father and my brother-in-law, have died. Christmas is paler without them and other loved ones lost. But we have the memories.

And we still do joke presents.

Christmas does change. Let the melancholy be a part of it, for it honors those gone. But with each new Christmas Eve and Christmas, smile and laugh as much as you can, for that honors them as much.