We miss her! (Picture: ITV)

Faith Dingle (Sally Dexter) might be gone but she certainly hadn’t been forgotten in Emmerdale as Christmas was full of memories of her – along with affectionate nods to other sadly departed villagers as characters paid their respects to people they’d lost.

At the Dingles’ Liam (Jonny McPherson) and Vinny (Bradley Johnson) talked about their grief. Liam had just been to visit the place where his daughter Leanna (Mimi Slinger) died and Vinny is of course still in the early stages of grieving for Liv (Isobel Steele). Liam advised him to ‘Just let it happen’ when he felt overwhelmed by grief, rather than trying to fight it.

Vinny raised a glass to the people that those around the dinner table were missing on Christmas Day. Lisa (Jane Cox), who was sadly missed by Zak (Steve Halliwell) who’d come home for the day, to Leanna, to Faith and to Lydia (Karen Blick)’s baby who was stillborn when she was just a teenager. And of course to his precious Liv.

Faith was being missed by a lot of people, but she’d planned ahead and had written Christmas cards for everyone with personal messages for them.

As Cain (Jeff Hordley) lay in his prison cell he was finally able to open the card that had been delivered for him from his mum and the message inside was beautiful. ‘You’re a better man than you think you are and a better son than I could have wished for,’ his mother had written. ‘Keep being Cain.’

It wasn’t long before he was dealing with more memories of Faith, as it turns out she had another son, Caleb (William Ash), who Cain banished from the family 30 years ago, telling him that Faith had died.

And now Caleb was at the prison wanting answers to a whole lot of questions about Cain’s past actions – particularly in view of the fact that Cain had robbed him of 30 years when he could have potentially got to know his mother.

Caleb had a lot of questions for Cain (Picture: ITV)

Meanwhile Moira (Natalie J. Robb), who was facing Christmas without her husband and trying to hold the family together for the sake of the children, had a message from Faith too and it was a message of strength. ‘There’s no one more Dingle than you,’ she wrote to her daughter in law, who’d stood by her throughout her illness. ‘You’re the glue that keeps the family together.’

There was hardly anyone more alone than Chas (Lucy Pargeter) by the end of the day, as trying to spend Christmas with Eve (Bella James) at the Woolpack had gone badly wrong when Paddy (Dominic Brunt) couldn’t conceal his hatred of her. The planned event when the whole family were supposed to come together to set off the firework that had been made from Faith’s ashes was cancelled because of the rift between Chas and the rest of the family.

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She took the firework and sat by her daughter Grace’s grave – a poignant reminder of another sad loss. Chas’s letter from Faith said, ‘Forgive your kids anything and keep them close. They’re all that matter.’

‘Bit late for that, Mum,’ Chas reflected after a day when Aaron (Danny Miller) had refused to speak to her when he called Paddy and she’d missed a lot of the day with Eve.

As Chas launched the firework on her own, Faith had perhaps sent her another message. A stranger approached and announced himself as Caleb – Faith’s son and her brother.

Oh, we miss her.