A Fitting Observance For a Family, Extra Large

The priest began his Christmas morning sermon with a nod to the family dysfunction, financial stress and the sheer existential angst that has become as synonymous with the day as eggnog and mistletoe.

"Norman Rockwell might not be able to paint a portrait of our homes during Christmas," he noted with a wry smile. "Pablo Picasso probably could."

The Callahan clan chuckled along with the rest of the parishioners at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Annandale.

But the truth is, the sight of their family probably would have sent Rockwell racing for his brushes. It's not just that Rita Callahan, 42, looks impossibly slender and youthful for a mother of 11 -- yes, you read that correctly, 11 -- children. Nor is it that the littlest Callahan, perpetually grinning, nearly-1-year-old Bridget, seems to have sprung from the label of a Gerber baby food jar, while the two eldest, Patrick and Jim, on vacation from their first year in college, seem so simultaneously boyish and manly in their buzz cuts and crisp blazers.

It's not even that the Callahans live in a white Colonial with green shutters and a wraparound porch that would be the envy of Jimmy Stewart.

No, what makes the Callahans appear to be emissaries from some bygone, halcyon age is how, by dint of conscious ritual and unconscious spirit, they have strived to keep their focus on the central message of what is arguably the most commercialized holy day in the history of man.

"We really want the kids to understand that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Christ and the beginning of our faith, and that we do that by spending the whole day together as a family," said Dan Callahan, 42, father of the brood. "The other aspects of Christmas -- Santa Claus and all the gifts -- are all secondary."

Not that presents don't figure into the family's tradition. As in households across the country, Christmas morning at the Callahans' began just after dawn yesterday with the padding of tiny feet into the living room, where a sea of boxes wrapped in blue and white paper (to match the tree trimmings) had magically appeared beneath the 9-foot fir in the corner.

As usual, 9-year-old Mary Anne, whom Rita calls "the little mother" of the family, was the first to arrive. By 7:30 a.m., 13-year-old Daniel, 11-year-old Peter, 7-year-old Joan, 5-year-old Joseph and 2-year-old Michael had all joined their sister in tallying up the loot.

"Joe didn't get that many!" Mary Anne called out with alarm.

"No, the rest of his are over here, behind the tree," answered Daniel, whom everyone calls Doodle, after Yankee Doodle Dandy, because he was born on the Fourth of July.

The siblings pressed their heads together in a mass of blond and reddish curls to get a closer look.