Sadly, winter break is over. Kids are heading back to school and Congress is headed back to, uh, Congress. I spent the past holiday weeks hanging with family, friends and Tweetdeck-- all the congressional well-wishes for the holidays truly warmed my spirit.

Many of our representatives were home with their families, some welcomed new members into their families, most wished their constituents and followers happy holidays in one way or another... and the way they did these things, as fleeting as they may seem, began to reveal overarching patterns and provided insight into their congressional Twitter personas.

The healthcare debate raged throughout 2009, and the nay-saying Republicans were eager to voice their disapproval for the bill up until (and following) the Senate's Christmas Eve vote. Orrin Hatch tweeted 23 warnings and rants on Dec 23rd. By illustrating how he believed the healthcare bill would affect Louisiana directly, David Vitter did a good job relating information to his constituents specifically. Utilizing a different method for relatability, John Cornyn posted a picture of himself reading the bill. Dan Burton equated Democrats with "the Grinch" and Lynn Jenkins cleverly dubbed the bill as "Harry Reid's lump of coal" — clever in the way "I'm rubber and you're glue" is clever.

A common theme emerged from the Republican tweets: Democrats are a bunch of vengeful Ebeneezer Scrooges. 

Maybe it was the dancing sugar plums, or just Jared Polis' holiday poems, but most talk of healthcare ceased on Christmas. Despite Congressional Christmas wishes for peace and happiness, we were still semi-attacked by terrorists. Pete Hoekstra and John Cornyn tweeted the most about it, and Virginia Foxx took the opportunity to voice her concern over the administration's treatment of "terrorists as criminals."

Averted Al Qaeda attacks aside, Christmas 2009 seemed a good one for most Congressmen, especially Jim Himes, who apparently got everything he wanted from Santa.

Right as we're finally finishing digesting Christmas, the New Year sneaks up on us. Maybe that's why Mike Pence merely retweeted Cathy McMorris Rodgers' mind-blowingly elaborate "Happy New Year!" tweet instead of writing his own. Or maybe it was because he, like his colleagues, was focused on the end-of-the-year fundraising deadline for 2009; Jim DeMint, Barbara Boxer, Roy Blunt, Artur Davis and Cong Joe Wilson were not ashamed to utilize Twitter to ask for some doughy support. All in all, most Congressional New Year wishes sounded similar to their Christmas ones, but some were definitely a bit more expansive, like Dana Rohrabacher's dream:

What became clear through all the Congressional tweets through this holiday season was that no matter on what side of the healthcare debate one sits, there's no denying the healing power of family, friends and fundraising. Until next time, a few inspirational(?) words:

Questions or comments? Follow me! Tweet at me! I even changed my uber-hip semi-inappropriate Twitter username into a conventional one: http://twitter.com/AmeliaHassani