A Day to Be of Good Cheer

Simple Pleasures, Selfless Acts Are Holiday Hallmarks

So what if a police car is stationed outside and Daddy's BlackBerry is parked on his hip -- on-call as usual, just in case of emergency.

Christmas morning in Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's house? Pretty much like everybody's.

"No matter what else is going on, we try to shut everything down so the kids can enjoy this day," said the District's first lady, Michelle Fenty.

Just after 8:30 a.m., the mayor stepped into his living room with a garbage bag and declared, "Okay, we're ready."

What followed was a flurry of wrapping paper as 7-year-old twins Andrew and Matthew ripped into box after box, piled under an elegant Christmas tree adorned with white and silver ornaments.

The two unwrapped matching Redskins jerseys, No. 21 for Sean Taylor, pulling them on over their matching blue-and-red sweater vests.

"Santa must have gotten them, because we looked all over the mall and couldn't find them," said Jan Fenty, the mayor's mother, sitting nearby.

"Just in time for the Dallas game," the mayor said.

On Christmas Eve, the first family went to Fenty's parents' home for a dinner with his two brothers and their families. But Christmas morning was quieter, with a pre-breakfast round of gifts.

What else did Santa bring? A Nintendo Wii was perhaps the most popular gift. The boys clung to the box, even as the group gathered for a family portrait.

There was a black dress and a spa gift certificate for Michelle; for Fenty's father, Phil, a framed photo of him greeting the Dalai Lama at the M Street shelter; a teakettle for Jan.

And there were gifts for the mayor, including Oakley sunglasses from Fleet Feet Sports, the Adams Morgan shoe store owned by his parents.