The Night Before Christmas in Bethlehem

Cheryl was born to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father in Passaic, New Jersey, where she was raised till the age of twelve. Her earliest happy memories are of books, and Cheryl credits her mother with instilling in her a love of reading. They made regular trips to the public library with a baby in the stroller and the rest of the brood trailing along. The library was an exciting place to Cheryl, who remembers it smelling of “knowledge and possibilities and unlimited pleasure”. She loved summer not only for its freedom from schedule and routine but for the endless hours she could spend reading. Cheryl read under the covers at night by the crack of light coming in from the kitchen, and she slid library books in front of her textbooks at school when she couldn’t bear waiting to find out what happened next. She describes reading as like breathing, essential and life giving, and her love of reading eventually led to writing- stories, plays, even a short-lived neighborhood newspaper, abandoned when she realized the arduousness of handwriting every copy. Cheryl always imagined she would write a book and in 2010, The Night Before Christmas in Bethlehem flowed out as she sought to bridge the gap between the secular and the sacred aspects of Christmas for a presentation to a women’s group at her church. The encouraging feedback she received and suggestions that she pursue publishing her poem as a book took root and began a six-year journey to publication. It would take two years to find the right illustrator, three years for the art to be researched and completed, and one year to design the finished product and have it printed, but Cheryl considers the result worth every minute of the wait. Cheryl moved to San Francisco in 1977. After forgoing a spiritual practice for sixteen years, she began attending a small church in the living room of a Victorian house where she began her journey as a Christian at the age of twenty-eight. She married her beloved husband Joe in 1985 and they have two adult sons and a wonderful daughter-in-law who bring them much joy. In 2001, Cheryl began a new and unexpected career as a professional clown, and has loved every minute of it. She and her husband also own a photo booth business and enjoy spending time celebrating special events with their clients.

When Carol was in her late forties, her father told her that at the moment of her birth, he was at the funeral home picking out her casket. Her parents had been told she had died in utero and her mother, very ill at the time, had been rushed to the hospital where Carol unexpectedly made her way back into the world, premature but alive. Her father’s words were a piece of a puzzle whose solution had eluded Carol all her life. Since her first painting at the age of eleven, many of her visualizations have had an out of the body perspective. Throughout Carol’s childhood, her mother shared with Carol her strong Catholic spiritual beliefs. These carried her mother through a lifetime of illness, which ended while Carol studied Fine Art at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. In the wake of that loss, Carol moved to California and furthered her education by studying Conceptual Art at the University of California in San Francisco. Carol’s early work of hand drafting and illustrating for architects, engineers, and a lighting designer allowed her to focus on details that kept her grounded. As Carol’s children grew, so did her time to paint. A cancer diagnosis spurred Carol to focus on her need to express herself in murals and portraiture, including a series of guardian angel portraits using parents as the persona of their babies’ protectors. All these forces came together in this book. It brought Carol great joy to research and visually interpret Christian scripture and Jewish traditions during the Roman occupation, and cultural artifacts of the Herodian Era. Carol’s studio is in Petaluma where she lives and loves, and she enjoys the blessings of each day with her precious husband, and often patron, Bob. They have three children and four grandchildren, whom Carol calls their finest creations.