This Christmas is going to be a bit rough on me. It is the first Christmas, in my entire life, that I will be spending without “All My Children.” ABC messed up and cancelled this wonderful soap opera, despite it’s ratings and the outcry from the “All My Children” fans. I am not quite sure how I will be able to get through Christmas without all my friends from “All My Children.”
No, calling the characters on “All My Children” my friends isn’t strange or an exaggeration. The characters from “All My Children” have been invited into my home for more than 40 years. I watched them grow and change all those years. I shared in their victories and their defeats. I’ve been a part of all their love, laughter and tears. Not having them around is quite depressing for me.
How can an intelligent and non-socially challenged woman get so caught up in the made-up lives of the people who live in Pine Valley? Quite simply, I grew up with them. I remember Erica Kane as a hostess, long before her modeling career, book deals and all her husbands. I can still see Tara and Linc, Mark and Ellen and Palmer and Donna together. I was there when Joe Martin found Tad and when Tad wore the chicken suit for Dixie. I saw Greg and Jenny fall in love. I cried when Kate Martin passed away. I ran from the room when Jesse Hubbard died. I was invested in these characters and many others for years. Being forced to give them up is like a death in the family to me.
Yes, “All My Children” is like family to me. I do realize and understand they aren’t really real. I think. They are real, in many ways, because they were written that way. The writers created believable characters that would keep me company for decades. Those characters were developed in such a way that I felt a connection to each one of them. Now that they are gone, I feel lost and, in some ways, alone.
Getting through this Christmas without “All My Children” is going to be a challenge for me, to say the list. I’ve never spent a Christmas without it. How will Erica and Jack spend Christmas? What will Tad and Dixie being doing for, especially after what J.R. did? I will never know. With “All My Children” fans begging for ABC to reconsider their mistake and bring back this wonderful soap opera (my friends), perhaps this will be the first and last Christmas I will have to spend without “All My Children.”