In Freidensburg, Betsy and Jack Wychunas sipped Christmas Day sangria on their patio. In Lehigh County, Jackson Barr got to throw his new boomerang. The DeBenedict family enjoyed a Christmas Eve bonfire in Andreas, and in Nesquehoning, Conrad Flynn's niece and nephew were able to use the outdoor toys he had given them as Christmas gifts.

"They rode new scooters followed by an epic backyard Nerf dart showdown," Flynn said.Record-breaking warmth embraced Christmas Day, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 60s in most areas of our region."Christmas Eve felt more like Memorial Day across much of the eastern United States as temperatures rose between 20 and 35 degrees above average and 5-15 degrees above previous record highs," AccuWeather says."Records were broken from the Southeast to New England with some areas breaking their previous record high by more than 10 degrees."Using Allentown as a reference point, AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines said the 61 degrees on Dec. 25 was the third warmest on record.It was 63 degrees in 2014 and 65 in 1964, he said."The 71 degrees on Dec. 24 made this the warmest Christmas Eve on record," Kines said.So far this month, temperatures have averaged 13.7 degrees above normal, which is amazing. Usually a month averaging 10 degrees above normal is highly unusual, let alone 13.7," he said."The average temperature this month is 46.4 degrees. The record for December is 39.0 degrees set in 2006.So you can see we are way above the record. The second warmest December was in 1982, when temperatures averaged 38.5 degrees and the third warmest was 2011 when the temperature averaged 38.4 degrees," Kines said."The 13.7 degrees above normal this month would represent about a 54 percent savings in heating costs," he said.