It was Christmas Eve, 1973. We had been working every moment to meet all the deadlines we had established in the contract for the DC Metropolitan Police Academy. One of the deliverables was for us to drop off the final revisions for a group of modules we had been working on for a couple of months. We took these deadlines very seriously, but due to the Christmas season, we were not always able to meet with the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as the schedule called for because they had job-related duties, were on vacation, or had office parties, or other legitimate reasons to cancel their sessions with us. But we kept at developing the overall Task Analysis, filling in where needed until we finished around noon on December 24th. Eager to get this deadline met and move on to the next section of modules, we called the Project Director at the Academy, and to our great relief found that he was there and welcomed our dropping the report off that afternoon. Peter and Mary headed to the Academy office on Blue Plains Avenue in southeast DC. We were welcomed and got there just as they were ending a little Christmas get-to-gether. We drank some eggnog, ate a few Christmas cookies, wished them all a merry, merry Christmas, and headed home.

At the time, we had two beautiful daughters, Jeanne, age 6, and Alice, Age 2. Throughout the weeks before Christmas, we had taken time to run to the department and toy stores to pick up presents here and there. From the wonderful German bakery across from our office in Langley Park, MD, we had picked two large gingerbread houses, one for us and one for Peter's sister Ann and her five little Kellys. We had stored them with their other gifts in a closet in our office keeping them safely hidden from their searching eyes until Christmas day. The one thing we had totally forgotten to do, however, was to buy a Christmas tree. How hard could it be to pick one up on Christmas Eve when the prices would be reduced? All through DC we passed tree place after tree place. They were all closed or had nothing left. The previous Saturday we had met the Assistant Manager of the local Sears store. He was telling us, with great bravado, how on Christmas Eve all the Christmas decorations were reduced substantially. It was close to six o'clock PM and we knew the store would be closing soon, so we rushed there hoping against hope to at least buy an artificial tree. In 1973, artificial trees were just coming into vogue, but we were both from families that never even considered doing anything but going out and buying the largest tree we could find, sometimes even cutting it down ourselves. But this year, we had to bend our traditions a bit so that our sweet little angels would have something when they awoke on Christmas morn. We got to Sears at five-forty-five, and the Assistant MAnager had been correct; every Christmas ornament and garland had been reduced 70%, 80%, 90% just so they wouldn't have to pack them away for the following year.

We walked into the Christmas Shoppe and saw a most glorious tree decorated with beautiful garlands of fruit, red and gold glass balls, red and white birds with an exquisite white dove shimmering atop the tree, and a multitude of lights that made the tree sparkle like nothing we had ever seen. We both drew in deep breaths of awe. We wanted to buy that tree fully decorated just the way it was. The salesman, however, had been given no directions about what to do with these ornate display trees. These, he assumed, were to be taken apart and sold piece by piece, decoration by decoration. We told him the Assistant Manager has assured us that we could have the tree fully decorated. He tried to check, but all the managers had left long before. here it was, close to closing time. We needed a tree. He wanted to go home to his own family. Peter left as Mary bargained. "Take it just as it is," he finally gave in, "for the sale price of the tree." In the meantime, Peter had spotted another beautifully decorated tree, not as glorious as the first, but taller and more traditionally decorated. "I like this better," Peter said. Mary had just conquered the hurdle and the salesman was already slipping large bags over the fully-decorated tree. "I already bought this tree," Mary said. "Good," Peter said, "We'll take them both." The salesman bagged up the second tree and helped us load them into the very deep trunk of our yellow Dodge Dart.

We left everything in the car when we got home, read the girls several Christmas stories, then tucked them in so they would be able to get up early to see what Santa brought them on the Christ Child's birthday. Once we were sure they were sound asleep, we worked like Santa's elves to put up both trees, the more traditional one in the living room and the more ornate one in the family room. We placed the gingerbread houses on the raised slate hearth, and placed the numerous gifts around the tree in the family room. We also placed the Nativity set we had bought on our very first Christmas together on the right side of the hearth. In the living room, we placed a small one track train under the tree and put in the center the small Nativity set that Peter had bought from McCrory's Department Store for his mother the Christmas before she died.

Christmas morning came with squeals of delight as we heard Jeanne"s "oohs" and "aahs". We laughed as Alice mimicked each sound, getting more and more excited over the trees, gifts, gingerbread houses, train, and Mangers. They held Baby Jesus in their own tiny hands each taking turns fondling and kissing his tiny face. It is our family tradition to go to Mass and eat breakfast before opening any gifts which we did. It was a perfect morning to celebrate Jesus' birth. The afternoon was also perfect. We drove to Derwood with presents and the yummy gingerbread house in hand to have Christmas dinner with the Kellys, Aunt Ann and Uncle Jack, and the five Kelly cousins, Maria, John, Kevin, Brian, and Lisa.

It was a wonderful time, a fun time, a blessed time. It is a time that I always think of when I reminisce about the work we did that year for the DC Metropolitan Police Academy Training Project.