Today looked a little different for its first live broadcast of 2024 as Savannah Guthrie was absent from her usual spot behind the desk.
Savannah, who normally co-hosts the program alongside Hoda Kotb, was instead replaced by Craig Melvin, who stepped in whilst the mom-of-two enjoyed "an extra day off".
While Savannah is no doubt appreciating some quality time with her family following the festive period, Christmas is always a bittersweet time for the journalist, whose late father, Charles Guthrie, was born on Christmas Day.
Savannah's dad sadly passed away from a heart attack when she was just 16 years old, having previously suffered a heart attack when Savannah was 13.
© InstagramOpening up about her father's death on Brooke Shields' Now What? podcast, the host revealed how his passing came as a great shock. "I don't think we understood how serious that was," she said of her dad's first heart attack. "And then three years later he had another heart attack, and that one was fatal. It was so unexpected."
Savannah went on to detail her grief, which she said will last "until I leave this world". "I think it changes everything. I always think of it as on our calendars we have B.C. and A.D. There's a before and after. It's just this stark dividing line," she explained. "There's before my dad died and there's after, and it's profound. Grief is a lifelong process. I really believe that. There's acute grief."
The 52-year-old went on to say: "There's different moments of grief, but I remember thinking even then when I was a late teenager, I always thought, I have a cup of grief now. It's like a cup of water and I'm going to spend the rest of my life emptying this cup. And sometimes it's coming out in buckets. And sometimes it's a little sprinkle and sometimes I can just hold it and nothing comes out.
"But every last drop of this cup will not be empty until I leave this world. I will always carry this grief. It doesn't mean that I'm not happy, that I'm not joyous, but it's part of me."
Christmas is an extra special time for Savannah thanks to memories of her father. Reminiscing about Christmas Days spent with her dad before he passed, the broadcaster recalled a sweet tradition in which Charles would let her and her siblings open one present each on Christmas Eve.
"Always, always, on Christmas Eve he would relent and say 'OK, just one' and so we would always get to pick one Christmas present to open on Christmas Eve," she explained during the Today special, 'Holidays in My House'.
"We would open up a present and he'd say, 'Let's open them all!' and then we'd say 'No, Dad, no, we have to wait until Christmas!' That was just a really sweet tradition we had with my dad."
Explaining why Christmas means so much to her, Savannah continued: "I think we hold on to Christmas even harder now, because it's a tie to him, and a tie to the past and to our memories.
"So Christmas just absolutely lives in my heart and lives in our family and I will spend every minute I have making sure my kids feel that magic, too."
