Christmas 2013

HERE ARE MY ARTSY, BLURRY available-light pics from Christmas day. Blurry not for the sake of artsy, but only because I destroyed two of my cameras in Alaska this summer and this one belongs to Pam and I hardly know how to use it. Couldn’t figure out which settings do what so I faked it.

All three gals were home for Christmas, two with significant others in tow. Emily and Ryan from Brooklyn, NY; Jenna and Jonny, from Providence and Lincoln, respectively; and Laura from East Providence.

Jenna got a new coat. Which I imagine she’ll wear to her new job. She starts work next month on a TV pilot.

Jen’s never needed an excuse to strike a pose.

We don’t see enough of Miss Em. Wish she got up here from NY more often. She’s in marketing at Chanel, has a 44th-floor view of Central Park from West 57th in Manhattan.

Laura, the graphic artist and PhotoShop wiz, made these prints for Jenna, of a rose, a marigold and a snowdrop. Those are the girls’ birth flowers, for the months of June, October and January.

Jenna has the same flowers inked on her left hip. Above that, apple blossoms, in memory of my mother, Sophie Valerio DePaul, 1919-1987.

That’s Em’s Ryan. He edits medical journals for John Wiley & Sons, across the Hudson River, in Hoboken, NJ.

Jenna got a FaceTime video thing going with her Aunt Janet from California, who was spending Christmas with family in Maine.

Jonny owns and operates a construction company. He does major renovations in Providence, gutting multi-family houses and rebuilding them from the foundation up. Business is good! He’s got plenty of work to keep his crew busy through the winter.

Jenna appears to be speaking Italian at me.

Here they were all zipping around too fast for me to catch much of anything.

The bride’s looking slightly beat. She’d been cooking for two days at this point. The physical therapist allowed her to start driving last week, on short trips. She’s getting the broken shoulder back in shape. Slow but sure (mostly slow).

Later on, hanging in the kitchen.

Eat, drink and be merry! The light had been coming back for four days at this point. The solstice was on the 21st.

Daughter #3, funny Miss Laura.

The bride thought a fur-lined bomber hat would fit my style. How right she was. I look like Underdog!

Daughter #1, Miss Em.

This may be the only in-focus photo I got all day. Entirely by accident.

That was Christmas 2013! Soon, the sun went back into hiding and the mighty ’49 truck stood the night watch.

Tony DePaul, December 26, 2013, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA