It was a horrible Christmas season the Guttman family could never have imagined.

On Dec. 21, 2005, the unimaginable happened when 15-year-old Tamara Guttman died suddenly of massive heart problems, leaving her mother and father, Lisa and Greg, along with her sister, Ashley.

Close to a year later, the three were among close to 70 people who turned up at the Elijah Smith Building for Hospice Yukon's Light of Life opening ceremony early Friday afternoon.

'This is one step for us to grieve,' Greg said in an interview following the ceremony. It's held each year by Hospice Yukon to honour the memories of relatives, friends or even pets people have lost.

As Kip Veale, the ceremony's MC and Hospice Yukon co-founder, noted at the beginning of the event, the holidays are a time to remember family and friends and gather together with them.

'Christmas can also be one of the most difficult seasons of the year,' she said. Each year, Veale added, Hospice Yukon offers the ceremony along with trees placed in various locations around the city so people can honour those they cared about.

The noon event was sprinkled with the sounds of the Persephone Singers, led by Barbara Chamberlain.

Greg was the first of three people to speak of the losses they had suffered, recalling his daughter's death nearly a year ago.

'We struggled through Christmas,' he said, as he remembered the assistance a Hospice Yukon volunteer named Anthony gave him in finding another father whose daughter had died.

It was the constant support of family, co-workers, friends and even his daughter's friends who have helped him, Lisa and Ashley through the grief.

Even after losing Tamara, her friends continue to come over to the Guttmans' house to spend time with the family.

Greg also lets the girls know when they visit if their boyfriends 'need a beating,' he'll be there for them, he said with a laugh.

Just before Tamara died, she had started going out with a young man, who, Greg said, had made her happy.

'I was happy for her and I was happy for him,' he said.

It was a good relationship he and his daughter had, often meeting halfway in what might normally be a dispute between a parent and teenager.

When she wanted to come home for the evening at 11 p.m. and he wanted her home at 10 p.m., for example, the end result would be a 10:30 p.m. curfew.

'We never had a fight,' he said.

One time he got a call from her when she was in Prince George, B.C., asking Greg if she could get a piercing. He gave her permission to do so.

With a lot of good, close friends, Tamara loved hip-hop dancing and all things outdoors, whether it be hunting, fishing, camping, snowboarding or snowmobiling.

The bereaved father also remembers never lying to his daughter, though he acknowledged he and her mother may have 'fooled her' sometimes, putting fake reindeer tracks in the yard to make her think that was where Santa had landed on Christmas Eve.

In short, Greg said, Tamara loved her family, friends and loved life.

In expressing his appreciation for Hospice Yukon, he also said how grateful he is to his wife and surviving daughter.

'I need them every day,' he said.

While the Guttmans had been set to be the first family to place a name on the children's tree, they opted instead to put Tamara's name on the adult tree, acknowledging that's what she would have wanted, Veale said following the ceremony.

Last year, as part of its Lights of Life, Hospice Yukon set up a display called Creative Expressions of Grief where people could bring in items which remind them of people they have lost. It's a tradition which is continuing this year.

Tracy Erman, a volunteer with Hospice Yukon, was the first to show her Creative Expression to the crowd gathered at the ceremony, bringing with her a butterfly in honour of her aunt.

Before she could begin telling her aunt's story though, she was in tears.

'She danced to the beat of her own drummer,' Erman said after pausing for a moment.

It was her aunt, who struggled through years of cancer, who inspired Erman to come up to the Yukon several years ago.

Her aunt also told her she got through the chemotherapy by thinking of each drop as a butterfly that would take the cancer away so she would get well again.

Karen Laprairie, another volunteer with the group, was the next to show her Creative Expression in honour of her grandmother, an avid quilter.

Living 45 minutes away from her grandmother, Laprairie remembers crawling under large quilts, which took up the whole living room, to get through the house.

'My grandmother taught me so many things,' she said, remembering lessons on sewing and quilting.

In honour of that, Laprairie brought in a mason jar displaying bits of her grandmother's crafts, her mother sent her that she normally keeps at her bedside.

'It's amazing how many memories it brings back,' she said.

As the ceremony came to a close, families and friends were invited to place the name of a loved one on the trees while the Persephone Singers continued their songs.

For those who couldn't make the ceremony, trees will continue to be displayed at the Elijah Smith Building, Whitehorse General Hospital, Macaulay Lodge, Copper Ridge Place, the Whitehorse Correctional Centre, Blue Feather Youth Centre and Hospice House, among other sites around Whitehorse this week. Residents can place the names of loved ones on the trees.