For Gary Dourdan and his kids--daughter Nyla, 6, and son Lyric, 2--December means one special occasion after another: the eight days of Chanukah, Christmas Day and then the seven days of Kwanzaa. "With our family, there are so many mixes, so we tend to celebrate a lot of customs. We light the candles for Chanukah [to celebrate Jewish family members] and the candles are lit for Kwanzaa holiday," says Dourdan, 37. Still, Christmas is always a main event. "Last year we had the biggest tree ever--it was like the Rockefeller Center tree in my living room," he recalls. Dourdan's children, along with other kids, create ornaments out of dough made by his mom, Sandy, who lives nearby. "It's like Santa's little helpers," the actor says. The best part for Dourdan is getting 30 relatives together on Christmas Day. "You look around at your whole family. You realize the Lord is good. Everything is right."

Sure, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a show loaded with cold corpses. But examine it more closely and the evidence is clear: Two hot bodies are changing the rules on the dark detective drama.
The shift began innocently enough, with studly Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) and sultry Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) wading through a Las Vegas drainpipe to look for clues to a crime earlier this season. Then Catherine stumbled and fell into Warrick's waiting arms. For a fleeting, flirting moment, they seemed on the verge of something steamy in the sewer — until a passerby interrupted.
"I felt that we had entered the zone of tenderness and exhilaration," recalls Helgenberger. Adds Dourdan, grinning: "It's always fun to work with a fine-ass costar."
Apparently, it's also fun to put some heat into a hit show that's usually more about forensics than foreplay. Promises executive producer Carol Mendelsohn, "Before this show is over, some CSI will have sex."
Five seasons into the series, the producers and actors agree that it's time to let people in on the characters' personal lives. "We've come to the understanding that this show is about this group of people and how they solve cases, but also how they interact," says Dourdan, stretching out his 6-foot-2 frame on a bed in the Los Angeles area home where the show is shooting. "It's more fun to do that than pull hair follicles and process them. After five years, you want that."