We haven't stayed at either of these places but we did visit Bolongo Beach for their Carnival night party on Wednesday. I saw lots of teenagers and families having fun. A woman in my dance class had stayed at Watergate Villas a condo at Bolongo Beach with her family with teens and said they liked it very much. The week before Christmas is one of the busiest of the year and you will find the hotel rates are very high. You should probably get booked rather quickly. Check out the links below:

http://www.bolongobay.com/

http://home.earthlink.net/~stthomascondo/index.html

You could also try a place like this.

http://www.greatrentals.com/vacation-rentals/St-Thomas-vacation-rentals.htm

Sapphire Beach is also very nice but I guess they are currently having issues with the restaurants being temporarily closed. My guess is that will all be taken care of by December. They have two beach areas and several options from the resort and timeshare units to privately owned/rented condos.

If you stay near Red Hook there is ferry service to the beautiful island of St. John. St. John is 2/3 national park. Just about all beaches are open to the public in the USVI so you don't have to be staying at that resort area to enjoy their beach. You should plan on spending a day on St. John.

I have to recommend going out on a sail boat for the day. There are two boats I can recommend that we went out on from St. Thomas. One is Ike Witt with Captain Pat and the other is The Alaunt with Captain Ron Arens. They both take you snorkeling and Captain Pat even jumps in the water with you to introduce you to his "fish friends". The Alaunt is a bigger boat and Ike Witt is a little more adventurous. We had wonderful days on both boats. The links are below:

http://www.alauntcharters.com/index.html

http://www.ikewittcharters.com/

Have a nice family vacation.

Christmas in Saint Thomas is a very popular time of year but you will love it. The air temp will be in the low to mid eighties and the water probably the mid seventies. Wherever you plan on staying, you should get your reservations in pronto. I've seen Sapphire and Bolongo recommended and they are two fine resorts. My personal prefernece of the two is Sapphire. The down island views are spectacular and if you feel like walking it is a ten to fifteen minute hike down the highway to Red Hook and the St. John ferry. You may also want to consider Secrect Harbor or the Elysian which are also both on the est end but not with-in walking distance to Red Hook

Thanks for that info... what do you know about Frenchman's Reef??