Family Christmas Photos

David and Colin decorated this Christmas tree in their place on 16th Street in the South South Slope (Park Slope, Brooklyn) which they shared with the immediate family. David had a job which included the decoration of Christmas trees when he first came to New York, so the tree had a very nice aesthetic aspect. The rest of us added a few ornaments which were new or old family traditions, and put our various gifts to each other under it. Amanda, Gabe, and Caleb flew in from New Orleans, Caleb's fourth Christmas, Chelsea and I came down from the Catskills, and Jonica was already close by in her place in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

We had our traditional Christmas eve party before a subset of the group went to the candle light service at the Park Slope United Methodist Church. Old friends Amber and Rahmin came over as usual, and Colin brought some new friends from the Institute of Culinary Education.
One of the nicest decorations was the adorned dressmakers form which David uses in his work as a costume designer/maker for off-Broadway shows and his own performances. Caleb took a series of shots from his 4 year old perspective which were interesting. Similar to many families these days, baking cookies, cooking in general, and taking pictures are all past-times shared widely.

The man in the Santa Claus hat is Gabe Soria, the father of Caleb, and the co-author of the vampire oriented graphic novel entitled "Life Sucks." Amanda, the mother of Caleb who teaches sustainable food topics in a charter school in New Orleans, is sitting on the piano bench in the picture next to Amber (her high-school chum). In the background on the walls on the right you can barely see the portraits of Amanda Milan and Sylvia Rivera, which have hung in this house for years.

Dress forms make wonderful decorative props. Every time I come into the space from my in the tranny cellar below I am fascinated by the various costumes worn by the dress form.

This is a forest scene taken near the Pine Hill Lake in early January 2009. Gina and I had just walked under the old Delaware and Hudson Railroad trestle, and were looking up the mountain at the beautiful winter scene. Spending winter vacation in the Catskills reading books on local history makes me wonder at how the residents in the 18th and 19th centuries were able to get through the cold winters. It is a heat wave when the temperature goes above 32 F at the warmest part of the day. Yet our rabbits are able to survie just fine in there hutches under the spruce trees on the hill behind the house. Many days are so dark and misty/snowy that we cannot even see the mountain across from our living room window. At the same time there are hours when the winter sun is delightfully bright, making everything glisten. I like it best when we are in the midst of a snow storm, and the snowplows are the only intrusion on the soft silence as they appear out of the storm with their flashing yellow lights before they disappear again.