By this time, I think we were worn out coming up with new ideas. Each year, we’d start dreading the “what are we going to do to top last year” syndrome somewhere in mid-July and be uneasy until something came to us in mid-November. But we couldn’t quit doing the cards.
So as a way to kind of let everyone know that this chapter of scenario-based Christmas scenes was coming to an end, Holly came up with this genius idea of having everyone from all the previous cards show up for Christmas dinner at our house as a final coda to this 14-year run. The shoot was really a party/reunion atmosphere at Studio West.
Below are the cards that got reprised:
1991 – Me in the familiar position of facedown drunk.
1992 – We lost track of Doc from Las Vegas Tattoos (gee, what are the odds), so Rob Catalano filled in.
1993 – Bill “Santa Claus” Verrill is probably telling the cop how he got fleeced by a couple of poker cheats a few years earlier.
1995 – Debi came back and donned her cherub wing, and got the same Christmas tree tattoo that I got from the '92 card.
1997 – We couldn’t track down that original forest ranger, so Kerry Wilson donned the gear.
1999 – One of my carolers, Mary Ellis was in town and helped out.
2001 – Four of my six “strip club buddies” showed up but not the original stripper. The sub was brunette, so we Photoshopped her hair blond.
2002 – None of the original wise men were available, so Donald Petross filled in for Mike McDuffie and Dana Wagner took Sonny’s robe.
2003 – Sadie Belle is down at the far end of the table with Mary, while Gordy the cop and Bill “Santa” Verrill reminisce.
A terrifying moment happened after this shoot while we were all standing around chatting. Holly looked up and noticed that Sadie Belle—all of 20 months old—was nowhere to be seen. The studio is on the second floor and there were two separate steep stairs leading straight down. Everyone was in a panic, calling out her name and fearing the worst. Finally, true hero that he is, Gordy the cop came carrying our girl down the stairs from the roof(!) where she’d been sitting and eating a cookie some 30 feet above the pavement, oblivious to the chaos she’d created. We still get sick thinking about it.
Favorite caption:
+ We got the band back together for one last gig.
So as a way to kind of let everyone know that this chapter of scenario-based Christmas scenes was coming to an end, Holly came up with this genius idea of having everyone from all the previous cards show up for Christmas dinner at our house as a final coda to this 14-year run. The shoot was really a party/reunion atmosphere at Studio West.
Below are the cards that got reprised:
1991 – Me in the familiar position of facedown drunk.
1992 – We lost track of Doc from Las Vegas Tattoos (gee, what are the odds), so Rob Catalano filled in.
1993 – Bill “Santa Claus” Verrill is probably telling the cop how he got fleeced by a couple of poker cheats a few years earlier.
1995 – Debi came back and donned her cherub wing, and got the same Christmas tree tattoo that I got from the '92 card.
1997 – We couldn’t track down that original forest ranger, so Kerry Wilson donned the gear.
1999 – One of my carolers, Mary Ellis was in town and helped out.
2001 – Four of my six “strip club buddies” showed up but not the original stripper. The sub was brunette, so we Photoshopped her hair blond.
2002 – None of the original wise men were available, so Donald Petross filled in for Mike McDuffie and Dana Wagner took Sonny’s robe.
2003 – Sadie Belle is down at the far end of the table with Mary, while Gordy the cop and Bill “Santa” Verrill reminisce.
A terrifying moment happened after this shoot while we were all standing around chatting. Holly looked up and noticed that Sadie Belle—all of 20 months old—was nowhere to be seen. The studio is on the second floor and there were two separate steep stairs leading straight down. Everyone was in a panic, calling out her name and fearing the worst. Finally, true hero that he is, Gordy the cop came carrying our girl down the stairs from the roof(!) where she’d been sitting and eating a cookie some 30 feet above the pavement, oblivious to the chaos she’d created. We still get sick thinking about it.
Favorite caption:
+ We got the band back together for one last gig.
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