The recorded information about the Christmas holidays after Susy's death,
particularly 1896 and 97, shows that those were indeed dismal and very sad
days for Mark and Livy.

Of course this is a common feeling among the bereaved.  For some, the first
holiday is the hardest; for others, all the rest of them are hard too.  Some
of this I have discussed in some of my own work.  And there is a wealth of
clinical data about this.

BTW: if you read Joe Twichell's holiday remembrances, as recorded in his
journal, it appears that during the major period in Hartford, those were
jolly days surrounding Christmas and the New Year.  Twain often sang and
played piano, for instance.

I believe there did arise some horror of the holidays, but I would tend to
associate it with the so-called "dark days" after August 1896.

Dr. Harold K. Bush, Jr.
Saint Louis University