Happy Holidays!

Today when I opened several holiday photo cards with humorous holiday letters, I regretted skipping our family photo card this year.

Holiday cards and letters are a great way to look back on the year as well as to keep in touch, especially if you’re not on Facebook. Inevitably you learn something new about your friends and family. Last year I found out my brother-in-law, Bill, drives all over Kansas to judge barbecue contests (aka Barbecue Bill going forward). Who knew?

And then it hit me. It’s not too late! After all, isn’t a blog post simply a modern day equivalent of a paper newsletter? So welcome to my 1st Annual Online Holiday Newsletter!

2015 will long be remembered as the year of wedding celebrations, all beautiful, unique and memorable each in their own way. This is one of my favorite family photos of the year, since we’re all together and really dolled up.

This year we went to 12 different weddings. Jay and I went to 6, Bonnie went to 5, and Laura went to 6 (in Switzerland, Chicago, Evanston, Urbana and 2 in Philadelphia, winning our most miles traveled award). I couldn’t help thinking about wedding cake paintings.

Lots of dress shopping this year, especially with Laura being in the bridal party in 3 of her 6 weddings. We saw Laura more this year than any other year since she moved to Urbana.

Here’s the most spontaneous and fun wedding photo of all.

We extended the San Francisco wedding trip to include 10 days driving the rugged California coastline up to Mendocino (Jay has nerves of steel!), taking in the wine and art in Napa (more on that another time), and ending with a breath-taking visit to Yosemite.

The Evanston wedding coincided with Jay’s national bridge tournament in Chicago. 2015 marked the first time Jay has made it to the semi-finals in a national team event (the mini-Spingold national event, for you bridge aficionados.) Congratulations to Jay!

This was also my first trip with Jay to a national tournament and it was more fun than I thought. While Jay was playing bridge twice a day, I toured Chicago’s distinctive architecture with a dear friend from business school (where Jay and I met), visited my cousins (4 first cousins in the area), went to art museums – and couldn’t stop taking photos of The Bean in Millennium Park (maybe there’s a series here a la Monet’s Haystacks) Now I’m considering going to the 2016 summer tournament. How does Washington, D.C. in July sound to you?

Unfortunately, all these weddings were accompanied by too many funerals, one of which hit me particularly hard. One of my oldest and dearest friends who I met at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Marlene, passed away in July after a prolonged battle with cancer. So I spent our wedding anniversary writing a eulogy for the Philadelphia funeral, but was grateful for the opportunity since it proved to be cathartic, and brought back memories of happier and healthier times.

The 3 day trip was bittersweet since I got to spend time with both her daughters, Debbie (now living in Bethesda) and Lauren (from Santa Monica), and their families, something that hadn’t happened in years. I brought a lot of old photos and this was the favorite.

2015 was the year I broke out of my comfort zone with my art. I participated two different 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenges in January and September. For the first time, I finally tried painting on wood panels instead of linen, and explored a lot of new subjects, food and non-food – including flowers, hood ornaments, double yolk eggs, sunsets and more. I was in a number of shows this year, at the Katonah Museum of Art, Silvermine Art Center, and in American Realism at Cavalier Galleries with branches in Manhattan, Greenwich and Nantucket.

In between the Challenges and weddings, I took 4 trips to Michigan to visit my mother, who celebrated her 90th birthday in her condo where she has lived for at over 35 years. This also gave me a chance to keep in touch with relatives and long time friends, and see the long overdue Diego Rivera retrospective at the Detroit Institute of Arts (a subject for another blog).

Looking back at 2015, no wonder I felt like I didn’t have much free time!

Now for the kids (who really aren’t kids any more).

Bonnie (right) is in her 3rd year as an elementary special education teacher at Central School in Mamaroneck. It’s a demanding job that requires superior multi-tasking skills (which she demonstrated at Thanksgiving). She has found her calling as a teacher. Somehow she fit Pilates classes into her schedule twice a week, and she spent more time enjoying the food in New York City.

Laura (left) will officially receive her Masters in Biophysics and Computational Biology from the University of Illinois in May. Kudos to Laura! We will be going to Urbana for her graduation ceremony.

And so her job search for a bioinformatics position has officially begun. Her current genetics-based research project at the University of Illinois is funded through July.  Of course, being her mother, I’m hoping Laura will return to the greater New York area…. So if you hear of any opportunities, please contact Webmaster Laura at admin@beverlyshipko.com.

As I write this post, I remember why I stopped writing the paper letters – it’s hard. There’s too much to say, and I have a tendency to include a laundry list of things that sounds akin to bragging, particularly without being broken up by photos. Now I better appreciate the consummate skill of Barbecue Bill who writes such entertaining, tongue-in-cheek letters that I chuckle over every year – without a single photo!

As always, I look forward to catching up with all of you, and to seeing you the next time you’re passing through New York. Our door is always open.

 I wish each and every one of you a peaceful and joyful holiday season.  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!