Forget and forgive.....Christmas side effect?

Italy, morning

I am enjoying a lot the Christmas atmosphere here in Italy. I am spending a lot of time with my family, I am trying to relax as much as I can with no daily schedule at all, and so, I am happy to be where I am.

One of the good thing that I can really enjoy doing here is to watch all the movies that I want with Elio Germano (which are almost impossible to find in France). Yesterday, I even came across this short-movie (which I have to admit I didn't understand) with him....

On the other hand, one of the not-so-good things of being here around Christmas is that I can't avoid, especially at this time of the year, to leave painful or unclear situations suspended. If most of the time during the year, I just focus on working and I have the tendency to postpone resolving painful situations and not wanting to think about it, when I get at this time of the year, when I slow down, when I feel that I would like to be with all the people I love around me, etc. I can't avoid to think about problematic situation.

Procrastinating in this sense is even more complicated when other people around me, just because at Christmas we have to be better people (why just at Christmas???), call me like nothing bad ever happened between us and expect me to forget the past, forgive anything that needs to be forgiven and play the happy family. I don't like this Christmas side effect. Bad people keep being bad people. I don't believe that anyone can change. Yes, you can try to change and improve your character...but I don't know a single person that on the long run, really changed from what he/she was.
So, when my father yesterday called me out of nowhere, and asked me how I was doing and for the first time in ages he actually listened to my answer, when my grandmother told me that my father went food shopping for her (as it snowed a lot here and she couldn't go out), thing this that he has never done in his entire life, I started to wonder if this was just one of his numerous tricks to convince people to forgive him and forget the past, for then throw them (us) away again when he feels like.

I would really like to be able to believe that he could change and be a better person, someone who actually cares about someone else except himself. But I can't. I stopped believing in fairy tales long time ago, and if I am cynical, it is also thanks to him. I like the Christmas atmosphere, but it doesn't have all this power on me to make me believe that Santa Claus exists and that miracles do happen sometimes......