Let’s have some fun! Climb into my special time capsule. Push the back button and set it for 30 days. Okay, with that accomplished, here we go!

Think we should check the newspaper, to see just where we are. "Let the Giving Begin", "Special Holiday Hours 5 a.m. until Midnight", "Super Values Friday only," "Expect Great Things", "We Have it ALL for the Holidays", "Unwrap the Magic."

My goodness, we have hit on a very special day! The day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, the traditional start of Christmas shopping! This must really be BIG! Let’s try pushing our time capsule forward - try bumping it up two days. Check out the St. Louis Post- Dispatch’s Business section: "It’s Round 2 of the culture war between ‘Happy Holidays’ and ‘Merry Christmas.’ While Crate & Barrel is standing pat, many other retailers -after years of being politically correct and inclusive of all religions - are including the word Christmas in their holiday sales pitches."

Fully realizing and accepting not everyone accepts Christmas - "We certainly welcome the trend toward using Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays," said Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., an organization that added to the outcry last year. "The fact is, the vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas rather than a generic winter holiday." Now this just feels like a step in the right direction!

We’re ready to get back in the time capsule and go forward to today’s date. We’re in church, it’s Dec. 24, Christmas Eve. There are so many of us here joined by their extended families. We have come together to celebrate the birth of the infant Jesus.

The church is beautifully decorated. There is an undertone of peace and love. We have come together once again as a Parish family. The music is beautiful.

The Mass is beautiful! We are wishing Merry Christmas to those around us. It is so good to see all those familiar faces. Many we have known for years. We have enjoyed so many happy events, and shared so many sad times. We are truly "family."

Finally, we are here once again to remember the very best gift of all. God has sent His only Son to redeem our sins. What better gift than this? It is not "One day only" and we can truly "Expect great things" as the ads promise. Enjoy our gift-giving, enjoy our families, but also enjoy the peace of this beautiful day. Jesus would want us to do this. He has given us so many reasons to be thankful!

Oh no, I hit the forward button - it’s Dec. 26! I’m totally NOT ready for the newspaper today! I’m also NOT ready for those returns and exchanges. Hit it back again, and keep THAT feeling for the upcoming year! Peace to all and to all a goodbye! Merry Christmas!

The first parishioner we feature moved to this neighborhood on April 15, 1948! He still lives in the same house they built on Cranston. If you attend 8:30 Mass on Sunday, you will see him in attendance and also serving as an usher. If you are in need of a hug, handshake or just a friendly smile, he is always willing!

I’ll bet by now many of you recognize the parishioner as Bill Bussen. We were warmly received into his very comfortable home for this interview; his only reservations were that there are many other parishioners more important than he is. I explained it was just his turn, and just knew you, our readers, would agree.

Bill was born in south St. Louis and has live d there all of his life. Bill had two brothers and two sisters. The family lived in St. Pius V Parish. Bill enjoyed singing in their choir. He has fond memories of Christmas dinner at his grandma’s home in Carondelet.

As a young man, Bill was in the choir at St. Andrew’s Parish. A friend of his, also in the choir, was meeting a girlfriend from Aviston, Ill., and asked Bill to go along. It was then that Bill met Mary Catherine Kues, who would become the love of his life. Bill and Catherine were eventually married in her hometown of Aviston on Oct. 18, 1938. Their first home was on Blaine Avenue in St. Margaret of Scotland Parish.

During this time, our parish’s founder, Msgr. Chiodini, was also in residence at that parish. As their family grew, they moved into their Cranston home on April 15, 1948. As fate would have it, Father Chiodini would also be sent to the Affton area to start a new parish, St. Dominic Savio, in 1956.

The first rectory was at Foxcroft and Stonegate not far from the Bill and Catherine’s home. Bill reminisced how Father Chiodini asked him to make some crosses for the Stations of the Cross, which would be used in the basement of that home where weekday Masses were held. Weekend Masses were held at the Kenrick Seminary Chapel.

Their family grew to seven children: Joyce, Jeanette, Bill, Don, Keith, Mark and Steve! We asked Bill if he had a favorite Christmas memory. His reply: With seven children, it was Christmas year round!

On Christmas Eve, they would have someone ring jingle bells outside their house. The children would check if possibly Santa was outside, but he would not be found. Upon their return, the gifts would be found under the tree! Can’t you almost feel the excitement of seven children on that special night? Christmas Day was spent with Catherine’s family.

During this time, Bill actually found the time to sing in the choir at all his parishes along the way! He also enjoyed bowling and sometimes Bill could be seen heading out to enjoy a game of golf with his friends.

Today, Bill’s family has spread to Florida, Arizona, California and Pennsylvania. Jeanette is a St. Joseph nun. Two of the boys live in St. Louis area. Bill and Catherine celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1988, 12 years before Catherine passed awa y. His lifetime sweetheart passed away on April 27, 2000. They have 18 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren!

Bill said that he feels he has been so blessed to live in St. Dominic Savio Parish. He feels we have been lucky with all the wonderful priests who have served here. The goodness and friendship of his neighbors and parishioners over the years have added to many happy memories and are very much appreciated.

We hope you have enjoyed getting to know Bill just a little better. We also hope that if you need a hug or a friendly greeting you will look for him at the 8:30 Mass on Sunday. Let him know that it’s people just like him and others very much like him that make our parish such a great place to live. Thanks Bill for letting us share his story. Congratulations!

After Jeff finished high school in 2004 he took training in the field of masonry but his heart was not into that. He worked other jobs until the end of 2005 when he decided to enlist in the U.S. Army.

Jeff was home for Christmas that year but two days after Christmas he left for Basic Training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Jeff graduated from Basic that March.

We had a weekend with him off barracks at that time in Radcliff, Ky. It was hard for us to leave him that weekend because he went right into tank training. He graduated from that on May 14 (Mothers Day). He came home on leave and afterwards, left for Fort Benning, Georgia, for more tank training.

It’s been hard for him - even though he wanted to join, he looked so forlorn as he walked back to the barracks that first weekend we visited him. Later, he wrote me that, "It was the longest walk back the barracks I ever had!"

It has gotten better. Home this Thanksgiving during a four-day pass he admitted, "I’m scared." He sounded like his grandfather who flew over England and Africa during WWII; he was scared too.

Jeff will be home for Christmas furlough for two weeks and then he will go to California. He will be deployed to Iraq in April of 2007.

I’m lying if I don’t say he is scared. But, he looks forward to serving his country and asks to be kept in your prayers.

Many parishioners got a jump on their Christmas shopping by attending this year’s SDS Book Fair, which began Nov. 27 and concluded Sunday, Dec. 3 with coffee and doughnuts for all, courtesy of Home and School. It is always a lot of work to put on successful events like this but the "good" derived is worth it. Thanks, Sue Cronley and Lisa Wildhaber for making the Book Fair a success.

And thanks to the many evenings and weekends of hard work, Kathy Shaver and Lisa Wildhaber and their crew has given us a wonderful Christmas present, the SDS 50th Anniversary Pictorial Directory with cover art created by Tom Dineen. What a fitting Christmas season wind-up for our parish’s 50th Anniversary celebrations. Our thanks go to Kathy and Lisa and all the many others who helped - including the parishioners who took the time to have their pictures taken - for becoming a documented part of our parish’s history.