"And you think that's healthy?" Florence pointed out gently, her expression sympathetic. "Hoping your best friend is still in there?" Sympathetic but brutally honest. She'd learned over the last several months of her friendship with John that that was how it had to be. If she was too soft, he'd wallow and if she was too harsh, she'd lose him. There had to be a fine line and she had to toe at it, but never cross it. "I don't know that I truly believe in an afterlife, John, but here, you kind of have to. It looks us in the face every day. And I'd much rather think he's up there pissing off some angel or another complaining that they're doing things wrong in Heaven."
Somehow, the great Sherlock Holmes disliking Christmas didn't really surprise her any. Father Christmas was nothing but a fantasy to him, probably had been even when he was a small child. Christmas wasn't logical, or something. She, however, loved the holiday. Desperately. Even growing up with a single mother who worked overtime just trying to support her daughter, she loved it. And she was not going to let Sherlock Holmes' memory taint the holiday for her. It was her first Christmas as a married woman, with friends instead of colleagues and people to care for. She was not letting this be a bad year.
"Well, that's just too bad, isn't it?" she scolded. "Because I'm thinking your flat needs holiday decorations, you need Christmas cookies, and I've heard there's a gingerbread tea and it has to be tried. Oh, and peppermint mocha cakepops are out. I'm thinking six dozen, personally." Which was a bit much, even for an entire Complex of people. That wasn't likely to stop her. She had the money to spoil people she loved, she was going to.