No Display Manager + shutdown/reboot

[Perry Thompson <rypervenche@yahoo.fr>]

Hi all. I am using Debian Wheezy with Xfce4. After some testing with
different DMs, I decided to start X from a tty using "startx". I was
told in the Debian IRC channel that it works fine by just removing all DMs.

I enjoy using my computer this way, however I am unable to...

1) shutdown my computer by pressing the power button, and
2) choose "Shut Down" or "Restart" after pressing ctrl+alt+del (I made a
custom keyboard shortcut to call xfce4-session-logout). Both "Shut Down"
and "Restart" are grayed out, but "Log Out" works fine.

Is there any way I can have this do what I want while not using a
display manager? Or would I really have to get one? I also tried nodm,
but had the same problems. I would still rather not use a DM if possible.

Please let me know all of my options and if a solution exists for my
problem.

Thank you.