Christmas comes to Newtown, Conn. - Washington Post

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Dec. 25, 2012 
Newtown, Conn., celebrated Christmas amid piles of snow-covered teddy bears, long lines of stockings and heaps of flowers as volunteers manned a 24-hour candlelight vigil in memory of the 20 children and six educators gunned down at an elementary school just 11 days before the holiday.
Craig Ruttle / AP
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Dec. 25, 2012  
Joanne and Bill Brunetti, of Newtown, are part of a group monitoring the memorials around-the-clock. “You have to do something and you don’t know what to do, you know? You really feel very helpless in this situation,” Joanne Brunetti said.
Craig Ruttle / AP

Dec. 25, 2012  
A light coating of snow blankets Newtown. On Dec. 14, Adam Lanza, 20, went into Sandy Hook Elementary School and gunned down 20 students and six staff members. Earlier that morning, Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, in their Newtown home.
Craig Ruttle / AP

Dec. 25, 2012  
Beside a memorial to the Sandy Hook Elementary students and teachers, Julian Revie, of Ottawa, plays Christmas music on a piano he brought to the memorial. The expansive memorials throughout town have become a gathering point for town residents and visitors alike.
Craig Ruttle / AP

Dec. 25, 2012  
A boy touches stockings that represent those killed in the shooting.
Adrees Latif / Reuters

Dec. 25, 2012  
Rosaries and other religious items hang from a memorial in Newtown. At St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, which eight of the child victims of the massacre attended, the pastor told parishioners that “today is the day we begin everything all over again.”
Craig Ruttle / AP

Dec. 25, 2012  
A snow-covered sign is seen at a memorial.
Adrees Latif / Reuters

Dec. 25, 2012  
Portraits of slain students and teachers hang from a tree at a memorial in Newtown. Well-wishers from around the country showed up Christmas morning to hang ornaments on a series of memorial Christmas trees while police officers from around the state took extra shifts to direct traffic, patrol the town and give police here a break.
Craig Ruttle / AP

Dec. 25, 2012  
Members of the Rutter family of Newtown embrace early Christmas morning as they stand near memorials by the Sandy Hook firehouse. A steady stream of residents, some in pajamas, relit candles that had been extinguished in an overnight snow storm. Others took pictures, dropped off toys and fought back tears at a huge sidewalk memorial in the center of Newtown’s Sandy Hook section that is filled with stuffed animals, poems, flowers, posters and cards.
Craig Ruttle / AP

Dec. 25, 2012  
A man touches the snow-covered grave of 6-year-old Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, one of 20 schoolchildren killed in the Dec. 14 shooting.
Adrees Latif / Reuters

Dec. 25, 2012  
A snow-covered white rose lays at a memorial.
Adrees Latif / Reuters


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