Bob always had mixed feelings about Christmas. On one hand, he disliked the commercialism of the holiday, and he knew that people had been deriding Christmas as too commercial since the days of Queen Victoria. On the other hand, Christmas could bring out the best in people, and give opportunities to connect with loved ones...that is, if you even had loved ones. The one thing worse than having no one to love at all was loving people who didn't love you back.
Bob stayed in his bleak little cell while most of the other inmates went to the visitation area to receive their Christmas visitors. No one had come to see him. Bob hadn't felt this lonely on Christmas since the first December following his estrangement from Cecil. He'd sent Cecil a bottle of Bordeaux and a Yule log cake in an attempt to make amends, and he'd sent a card as well. Bob had written and crossed out several wordy, almost incoherent messages (it was unwise to write in pen when one didn't know what to write. Or if one was slightly intoxicated). Finally, when the card only had the tiniest bit of space left, Bob had simply written, "I'm sorry."
In the present day, Bob was even more despondent. He now had his entire family hating him, not just his brother. And he couldn't write cards to them, because this time, Bob had no idea where any of his kin currently lived.
The vindictive side of Bob hoped that his parents, brother, wife and son were all feeling as lonely as he. Bob also dug his fingernails into his cell wall as he imagined Francesca being under the mistletoe with some other man. He remembered how, on Gino's first Christmas, Francesca had tried to put a little elf costume on the baby. Gino had come close to kicking her in the face with his tiny foot. Bob hoped his son's feet would stay at a reasonable size, and that the gene for clownish feet had skipped a generation. But Bob would probably never know. He could only hope.