THIS Christmas was unlike any other in Newtown.
When a gunman wiped out nearly an entire elementary school class and killed students and adults in two other first-grade classrooms just 11 days before Christmas, it made it impossible for the holiday to be the same this year.
Some residents, like Joanne Brunetti, have found ways to console and help their grieving neighbours. Well-wishers from across the US are stopping by to do the same.
Brunetti watched over 26 candles that had been lit at midnight, just before Christmas Day, in honour of those slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She and her husband Bill signed up for a three-hour shift and erected a tent to ensure that the candle flames never went out throughout the day.
"You have to do something and you don't know what to do, you know? You really feel very helpless in this situation," she said on Tuesday.
"People have been wonderful to everybody in Newtown whether you were part of what happened or not. My thought is if we were all this nice to each other all the time maybe things like this wouldn't happen."
At a town hall memorial, Faith Leonard waved to people driving by and handed out Christmas cookies, children's gifts and hugs to anyone who needed it.
"I guess my thought was if I could be here helping out maybe one person would be able to spend more time with their family or grieve in the way they needed to," said Leonard, who drove to Newtown from Gilbert, Arizona, to volunteer on Christmas morning.
"I know they've been inundated with support and that's great but it's always nice to have a present to open on Christmas Day."
Julian Revie played Silent Night on a piano on the footpath at the downtown memorial. Revie, from Ottawa in Canada, was in the area visiting at the time of the shootings. He cancelled his plans to go to Australia, found a piano online and chose to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day playing for the people of Newtown.
"It was such a mood of respectful silence," said Revie, who planned to leave the piano behind. "But yesterday being Christmas Eve and today being Christmas Day, I thought now it's time for some Christmas carols for the children."
Many town residents attended Christmas Eve services on Monday evening and spent the morning at home with their families. Others attended church services in search of a new beginning.
At St Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, attended by eight of the child victims of the massacre, the pastor told parishioners: "Today is the day we begin everything all over again."
Recalling the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, the Reverend Robert Weiss said: "The moment the first responder broke through the doors we knew good always overcomes evil."
"We know Christmas in a way we never ever thought we would know it," he said. "We need a little Christmas and we've been given it."
Police have yet to offer a possible motive for gunman Adam Lanza's rampage. The 20-year-old Newtown man, who lived at home, killed his mother in her bed before heading to the school and killing 20 children - all aged either six or seven - and six adults. He then killed himself.
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