Uncommon Ingenuity

Never underestimate the artist that lies within.

Holidays bring memories.

And among the things my mother kept, boxed up and tied with string or lying loose waiting to be (re)discovered, was one of our family Christmas cards—from 1959.

Black-and-white. Four children gathered around a snowman painted on our sliding glass door—one of her earliest holiday murals. At the bottom, in blue ballpoint ink, the words, written by one of us kids: Love, Bob, Sue, Jan, and Pat.

It was just a holiday card. But not just anything, really. It was a record. A signature. A bit of heart preserved.

And it brought to mind the tradition my mom had each Christmas that has never left me.

And still never fails to amaze me.

The house I grew up in had several sets of sliding glass doors. And although it probably didn’t happen every Christmas, it seems like every Christmas in that house, there were paintings on the glass.

I’m not sure where she found the time—raising four kids, managing the flurry of the holidays—but somehow, my mom always made space for creativity. She’d get large Christmas ads from a local lumber company or the Pepsi Cola building nearby, and tape them to the backside of the glass. That became her guide. With simple paints and uncommon patience, she traced Christmas into our home.

At first, it was snowmen and a single Santa Claus. But eventually… a full scene. I still can’t quite fathom how she did it.

Later, she’d tear an ad from a glossy magazine—Look, Life—and use graph paper to enlarge it by hand. No projector, no internet tutorial. Just imagination and math and heart.

My mother’s Christmas artwork was the background of the holidays, and often originated from magazine ads.

Years later, when I discovered one of those original clippings carefully tucked among the things she’d stored in a box, I nearly wept. She had saved it. Of course she had. (And WOW! She did such a great job replicating it!)

This Coca-Cola ad served as the guide for my mother’s Christmas painting. She saved it for us to find years later… and remember. ❤️

From her, I learned that creativity isn’t always loud or labeled. Sometimes it’s a quiet thing, born not of ambition, but of affection. It’s passed down in brushstrokes and snowmen and sliding glass doors.

Sprinkled with love and joy.

It’s found in a black-and-white Christmas card, yellowing at the edges, still whispering:
Love, Bob, Sue, Jan, and Pat.

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And if you haven’t read it already, you might also be interested in The Love She Carried —a reflection on my mother’s quiet acts of kindness, and the silver dollars she passed on, one heart at a time. A tradition now quietly carried across generations. Different notes. But part of the same chord.