Merry Christmas

This is a little painting I did for Kids on the Move to use for their Christmas card this year.

I think tulips are appropriate for everything, but especially their Christmas card.

Last month I was honored to be part of a wonderful event, the annual appreciation breakfast hosted by Kids on the Move.  My paintings were used on the invitations, the name badges, the place settings and I was able to present a giclee to Kids on the Move that now hangs in their building.

I like the idea of tulips for Christmas, I added the berries to make it more festive. I think a wreath is a great symbol or greeting, or welcoming. I think it goes so well with the "Welcome to Holland" story that I love.

Welcome To Holland

copyright 1987, by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.  After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and  says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy!  I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.  The important  thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease.  It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.  It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less   flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you  begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful  time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go.   That's  what I had planned."  And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream  is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very  special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.