It gives us plenty of time to shudder at the passing holiday cities that have proliferated over the last decade as the Black Sea's development has accelerated, executed with the utmost carelessness.
With every passing holiday they become that much more sentimental and valued -- the kids' paper decorations too.
Last week, as they passed around holiday photographs and talked about engagements and new babies, they tried to make sense of the killings.
Instead, Maria Reynoso, 65, her 33-year-old daughter, Marisol Tineo, and Ms. Tineo's three children -- Julio Rodriguez, 14, Andy Rodriguez, 9, and Kairy Rodriguez, 7 -- passed the holiday in a shelter, grieving and temporarily homeless.
Thanksgiving has passed, the holiday shopping season is in full gear and Christmas is on the way.
"It is likely that people who passed on holiday travel last year are again ready to travel this year," says Travelocity senior editor Genevieve Shaw Brown.
So many Americans also failed to notice the tragic milestone we passed this holiday season: in 2012, combat deaths were outnumbered by veteran suicides, reaching a record high.
The sense of an appropriate ending -- the painting reminds her of Cuba, an island on which Maria, to the astonishment of her family, has recently passed intoxicating holidays, dancing, flirting, strolling by the sea at sunrise -- is absolute.
Last June, the Queen's Birthday public holiday passed by with very little fanfare.
In 1994, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, encouraging people to celebrate the slain civil rights leader's birthday as a day of service.
After the summer holiday passed quietly without any attacks, American analysts were relieved, but still believed that an attack might be coming.
