0 i appreciate your company on this christmas day. if you're celebrating, our best wishes go out to you it cnn wishes go out to you it cnn newsroom starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com right now, merry christmas messages from across the globe. president obama and the first lady among the world leaders sending their best wishes. we'll tell you what they are saying and what's being left out. and u.p.s. is apologizing for a christmas nightmare. presents sitting in warehouses instead of under christmas trees. they're basically saying you sent too many gifts. and he's the man that senators turn to for advice and they got an earful from him during the government shutdown. we'll introduce you to senate chaplain barry black. hi there and merry christmas. i'm brianna keelner washington. wolf blitzer is off today. a merry christmas message from the president. he offered a heartfelt thanks to the troops overseas but also offered this nugget. >> here's the good news. for many of our troops and newest veterans, this might be the first time in years they've been with their families on christmas. in fact, with the iraq war over and the transition in afghanistan, fewer of our men and women in uniform are deployed in harm's way than at any time in the last decade. >> and that's something that we all can be thankful for and with more and more of our troops back here at home, now it's our turn to serve. it's our turn to step up and show our gratitude for the military families who have given us so much. >> our athena jones is in honolulu, hawaii, working very hard on this holiday where the obamas are on vacation. maybe not surprising president obama didn't mention health care in his christmas message, but that's certainly something that's top of mind for him right now. >> reporter: it certainly is, merry christmas, brianna. the white house and administration overall has been touting the high traffic they've seen not just on healthcare.gov, the federal exchange but also on state exchanges all across the country in the last several days as a lot of folks scramble to sign up for coverage starting january 1st. i should mention one more thing. the administration wants to make sure that folks who try to sign up and didn't succeed don't get too worried. let me read for you a statement put up on healthcare.gov. i believe you have it there. sometimes despite your best efforts you might have run into delays caused by heavy traffic to healthcare.gov. maintenance periods or other issues that prevented you from finishing the process on time. if this happened to you, don't worry. we may still be able to help you get covered as soon as january 1st. so what that means is that customer service representatives are going to be available starting tomorrow, not today because the call center is closed but starting tomorrow, they'll be able to help people finish the enrollment process if they started a couple days ago and got hung up. they're hoping they can help a lot of people finish so they can have health care coverage starting january 1st. >> is this something that everyone in all 50 states looking to meet that deadline will have access to? >> well, this is an interesting point you bring up here because different states have different deadlines. you have the federal deadline for the federal exchange healthcare.gov but 14 states including the district of columbia have their own deadlines. some have extended them to friday, december 27th. others have a deadline of tuesday, december 31st. in washington state, folks who may have had problems signing on, they're going to have till january 15th to sign up for coverage that's going to be retroactive to january 1st. it's all going to depend where you live. people will need to focus on their own state call and talk to their state's exchanges. >> athena, a very special mallika lee key ma ca. it's a vacation for the president but i know you've been putting in long hours in beautiful hawaii. thank you, athena. over in the uk, queen elizabeth gave her traditional christmas greeting to british people and those celebrating around the world. she talked about the newest member of the royal family, 5-month-old prince george. >> he's a little larger this christmas. as many of will know, the arrival of a baby gives everyone the chance to contemplate the future with renewed happiness and hope. for the new parents, life will never be quite the same again. as with all who are christened, george was baptized into a joyful faith of christian duty and service. for christians as for all people of faith, are reflection, meditation and prayer help us to renew ourselves in god's love. as we strive daily to become better people. >> now new parents prince william and duchess catherine attended a christmas church service today without little george because evenly princes might make noise in church, right? the royal family gathered for a feast at the queen's country retreat in sandingham, england. and shortly after the message aired, edward snowden deliver add alternative christmas message from moscow on london's channel 4. he urged people to rally against kens mass government surveillance. here's what he said. >> the conversation occurring today will determine the amount of trust we can place both in the technology that surrounds us and the government that regulates it. together, we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying. for everyone out there listening, thank you and merry christmas. >> okay. let's bring in our foreign affairs reporterer ellise labott. first off, elyse, why did he pick london's channel 4 and also it strikes me as kind of odd that edward snowden is giving a holiday message. >> well, that's right. channel 4 always looks for some kind of alternative message as you said. sometimes it's goofy. marge simpson or ali g have done it. often it's controversial. mahmoud ahmadinejad the former president of iran has done it before. channel 4 said that edward snowden's decision to reveal the extent of these surveillance programs has been one of the most significant events fst year and in fact, british security services for their cooperation with the united states also got a lot of heat. and he's kind of rallying not just the british people but obviously the world who's watching to have a dialogue about these mass surveillance programs going on not just in the u.s. but around the world. let's take a listen. >> a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. he'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unreported un andlized thought. and that's a problem because privacy matters. privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be. >> well, so brianna, it's not clearly as uplifting a message as the queen gave but one he thought was important to talk about. i might add that here in this country, even "time" magazine, he was one of the runner-ups for person of the year. so obviously, what he did has a lot of profound consequences for the dialogue in this country and around the world about the extent that their governments are watching us. >> it certainly does elyse. when edward snowden talks, people do listen to him, but i suspect that when you're looking at these holiday messages, his is probably the only one that mentions george orwell's novel "1984" don't you think? >> yeah but he said george orwell and this big brother watching us, he said that's nothing compared to what's happening today. so some of it was a little hyperbole. that a child would never have a private thought. i'm not necessarilily sure that's true but clearly he's trying to provoke. he started from just leaking this information and giving it to journalists to now being a provocateur, speaking out and trying to be a voice in this debate over the importance of surveillance versus privacy issues. elise labott, thanks so much. fascinating and happy holiday to you, my friend. >> you, too. the taliban claimed responsibility for this morning's attack on the u.s. embassy in is afghanistan's capital. two rounds hit the compound in kabul. no one was hurt. the attack comes at a crucial point for u.s. relations with afghanistan. the two countries are right now working on a security deal to define the u.s. military presence there in afghanistan after 2012 when the nato-led force is scheduled to leave. 50 u.s. marines are spending christmas on stand by in case more evacuations are needed in south sudan. the marines were deployed to nearby uganda. so far almost 400 americans have been evacuated after violence broke out in the region. let's bring ing inpentagon correspondent barb barb star to talk more about this. barbara, what are you hearing? are these marines in uganda on call for more american evacuations? does it seem like they might go into south sudan or is this very much a just in case? >> i think on call probably hits the mark, brianna. they have moved the 50 marines as close as they can to south sudan so if there also a request, an order from the state department to evacuate americans,ed that be the trigger. then the marines would go in. they can do two things there. they can evacuate americans and at the same time, they can provide additional security and reinforcement for the u.s. embassy in south sudan. right now, nothing else has happened. everything is just sort of status quo for those marines. but there's very much a specter here of wanting to be ready, part of the hangover, the shadow, if you will, of what happened in benghazi libya when a u.s. military forces were not nearby to help out americans in peril. and, of course, really part of it about what happened on saturday when rebels fired at three u.s. aircraft trying to evacuate americans and four navy s.e.a.l.s got badly wounded. this time if they have to go income, they will go in very ready for whatever happens. >> that's right. one of those navy s.e.a.l.s was wounded particularly badly, very critical condition. do you have any word on what you're hearing about that marine's medical condition? >> we hopefully have very good word about that navy s.e.a.l. he today we are told, finally is being transferred from nairobi, kenya, where he's undergone several surgeries for his injuries. and is going by military air medical evacuation plane back to the military hospital at landstuhl, germany, which, of course, has treated thousands of wounded from the wars in afghanistan and iraq over the years. his other three buddies were already transferred there a couple of days ago, but this one navy s.e.a.l. has had a very rough time of it. >> so do you read that as pretty good, barbara? because when he stayed in nairobi and the others went to germany you got a sense of how touch and go things were. do we take this as a really good sign he's able to be transported? >> we are told his surgical team, a combination of expert kenyan doctors including avascular surgeon trained here in the united states and united states medical military advisors have been able to ensure that he is able to be transferred, that he can endure that long flight. but brianna, as you and i have chatted make no mistake, what happened on saturday is quite serious. three u.s. military aircraft full of bullet holes, four wounded troops bleeding out in the back. and those aircraft flew 500 miles in those conditions to take them back to uganda and then very quickly put them on another plane that was able to fly all the way to kenya. this is a story i don't think we have heard the full story of the heroic efforts to save these four navy s.e.a.l.s. >> it is an amazing story. barbara starr, we'll be looking for more details for you in the coming days. coming up, christmas presents left in the warehouse? the people at u.p.s. are apologizing today for fight biting off more than they can chew. we have that next. when my son was born, i remember, you know, picking him up and holding him against me. it wasn't just about me anymore. i had to quit. 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>> brianna, they're backlogged and delivers may not make it in time. u.p.s. did say they're sorry. here's nor from their statement. u.p.s. is experiencing heavy holiday volume and making every effort to get packages to their destination. however the volume of air packages in our system exceeded the capacity of our network immediately preceding christmas so shipments were delayed. to give you a sense of how many packages u.p.s. handled they projected to deliver over 132 millioning abouts just last week. that's their peak week. the delays will impact at least that many consumers and here are how some of them are reacting >> i can't tell you how many countless hours we have spent on the phone dealing with this issue with people in memphis. and they're still blaming it on the ice storm, which was 2 1/2 weeks ago. it's terribly disappointing. we ordered they things december 1st. they can't find them because there's a thousand packages on pallets in there and they can't find our package. >> we got to the front of the line after wait aghour. they said it hasn't been processed yet. >> it's been here since. >> cnn spoke with a u.p.s. spokes pern said the period between thanksgiving and christmas was short they are year. she also said more people are shopping online. u.p.s. did consider doing deliveries today on christmas day but decided to not to have to ask drivers to come in and work on the holiday. >> oh, my goodness. is there anything people can do besides just wait? >> aside from giving out ious, watch for some companies offering help. amazon alerted customers to what they say is the "failure of the u.p.s. transportation network," and offering to refund some shipping charges and give out gift cards. in the meantime try to enjoy and know u.p.s. workers will be out first thing tomorrow morning thursday making deliveries. >> margaret, you know, if you did use u.p.s., maybe you september late, you can use that as an excuse at this point i suppose. it wasn't my fault you know? >> that's right. it prolongs the holiday, too. add an extra day. >> i like you're finding the silver lining in this. that's fantastic. you have a very merry christmas. thank you. >> you too. you know it's a holiday ridgeal for many children, getting the photo snapped with santa. at a los angeles mall, a special santa claus is the main attraction. some parents call ahead to make sure that this santa is working before they bring their kids to the mall. kyung lah is tracking the story in los angeles. >> heart of every mall at christmas, elves, cameras, crying babies. >> hohoho. >> all to see the obligatory mall santa but it's a rare sort of santa at the crenshaw plaza in south los angeles. >> we came to see the black santa. >> he draws crowds of preschoolers and their patient parents. >> merry christmas. >> just like every santa in any mall america. >> what you want for christmas? >> iphone. >> the pictures are characteristically christmas. at the same time, they're not. >> they feel good about themselves by seeing someone also that looks like them. when i was little, there there were none of those things. there was nos black santa in chicago in 1953. >> so it's important for them to see this? >> yes, it is. >> turn on the tv this christmas, all you see is one shade of santa. like most benevolent characters american children grow up seeing. >> the only important thing is to make the children happy. >> the good guy is white. but not at this mall. other santas speak spanish. >> feliz navidad. >> and for the last nine holiday seasons, 77-year-old has greeted the crowd plopping toddlers on his lap whose parents want her snapshot with st. nick to mean more than just a commercial card. >> kids don't see the no color. i don't think so. i didn't ceclor when i was little. you only ceclor when you get older. >> nearly all the shoppers in this mall are african-american or latino. there are only a handful of these santas in the entire country. >> hey, buddy. >> that's why santa himself has a wish this christmas. >> the malls next year will have a few ethnic santa clauss in all cultures. >> dreaming of a white christmas and one in many other shades. >> hi, sweetie. >> kyung lah, cnn, los angeles. >> president obama looking to get back on track. he turn things around in 2014 and get past his 41% approval rating? we'll take a look into the future next. ♪ how do you explain the feeling of this place? of pulling close the things you love. of days that crash headlong into night. and nights that say nothing but yes. you don't explain it. you just experience it. los cabos. live it to believe it. to help secure retirements and protect financial futures. to help communities recover and rebuild. for companies going from garage to global. on the ground, in the air, even into space. we repaid every dollar america lent us. and gave america back a profit. we're here to keep our promises. to help you realize a better tomorrow. from the families of aig, happy holidays.