Americans Savor Treats of Peace, Charity and Freedom for Hostages : Christmas: Former captives finally celebrate the holiday at home. Wall Street shows that it has a heart.

Crumpled paper from unwrapped Christmas presents littered the floors of homes across the nation Wednesday, but some of the best presents--freedom, peace and charity--could not be contained in gift boxes.

For the first time in six years, there were no American hostages in Lebanon. And unlike the last two years, the nation’s military was at rest.

Volunteers served Christmas meals to the elderly, the sick and the poor. And although economic times slowed donations, those who could gave clothes to the homeless and toys to children.

Americans released this year from captivity in Lebanon, including Jesse Turner of Boise, Ida., Joseph J. Cicippio of Valley Forge, Pa., and Thomas Sutherland of Ft. Collins, Colo., spent the holiday with their families.

“It’s the kind of Christmas that I’ve dreamed about for six Christmases,” Sutherland said on Christmas Eve. “It’s just the most joyful occasion that I could ever imagine.”

Freed hostage Terry A. Anderson was singled out by Cardinal John J. O’Connor from among the Christmas Eve worshipers at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

“We were so proud to hear him say that as a Catholic Christian, he had forgiven his enemies,” O’Connor said of the last American freed from captivity.

Elsewhere, the three dozen workers at the northernmost station on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline--where it is now dark 24 hours a day--took walks in temperatures dipping to 40 degrees below zero and prepared a lavish Christmas dinner to celebrate the holiday, said Jeff Streit, supervisor of Pump Station No. 1 on Prudhoe Bay.

“It’s kind of time to reflect on everything, a nice time,” he said.

The Christmas spirit also hit Wall Street, where Merrill Lynch & Co. opened its corporate headquarters so that more than 1,000 senior citizens could use the telephones for free.

In Tucson, the homeless and needy feasted on a turkey dinner at an unusual venue--a topless bar. Two hours before closing, the club had served 500 dinners, said Larry Dellheimer, chief financial officer of TD’s Show Club.

“The girls that work here volunteer their time on Christmas Day,” Dallheim said. “They’re dressed, of course.”

Janice Caldwell of Nashville, Tenn., changed her holiday plans to fly to Texas to help victims of weeklong flooding.

“I didn’t expect to be leaving on Christmas Day, but it really doesn’t bother me,” said Caldwell, 55, a Red Cross disaster volunteer. “The people there don’t even have a home to go to for Christmas.”

More than 1,000 soldiers and Marines from Ft. Bragg and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina spent Christmas at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where more than 6,000 Haitian refugees are being housed.

For some, it was a third Christmas away from home, dating to the invasion of Panama in 1989.

Army reservist Robert Denton of Greenwood, Miss., was enjoying Christmas with his family after spending a somber holiday in Saudi Arabia a year ago.

High above New York City, at the elegant Rainbow Room restaurant, Mayor David N. Dinkins entertained holiday revelers with a reading of Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”

In Atlanta, the Rev. Hosea Williams hosted his annual “Feed the Hungry and Homeless Dinner.”

About 1,500 volunteers served meals made from 1,200 turkeys, 10 cases of chicken, five hams and hundreds of pounds of vegetables, said coordinator Miriam Petty. There also were 500 pizzas.