'Tis the Season to be merry...?

Christmas is approaching fast, with only a few weeks to go until this year's Holidays! How is your Christmas shopping going? Your meal planning? Your traveling plans to see family?

For most of us Christmas is a joyous time, which we get to spend with family and loved ones. A merry season filled with laughter, gratitude and abundance. 

Unfortunately, for others, it is not.

Every year a number of people have no choice but to spend the Holidays in hospital, away from home and often alone. It is so easy for us fortunate ones to forget about them - and the doctors and nurses working shifts over the Holidays to care for them. So every year DeviantArt, the artist platform I am part of, runs the Holiday Card Project.
Artists (and non-artists!) are encouraged to write a self-drawn, painted, glued-together etc. Christmas card for a patient hospitalized over the Holidays. Those patients can have minor injuries or terminal diseases. The cards are collected and distributed in hospitals both in the US and overseas. The response from the patients is usually disbelief and gratitude that someone is thinking of them. You can find the official Project Brief here!

I have been eagerly awaiting this year's announcement of the project and I would like to encourage you to participate as well! You do not have to be a member of DeviantArt for this. 

And even if you do not wish to make and send a card yourself you can participate by helping me participate!

Here is what I will be doing:

I am painting a small number of Christmas Cards, of which prints will be available in my shop at FineArtAmerica. You can support the project through me by ordering these, because I will be donating the original painted cards to the Holiday Card Project. 

In the next weeks I will be releasing an overview of all my limited-edition Christmas gifts for this year - Christmas cards, Painted Candles and Painted Shells. But you can already have a look at the cards here (since I need to make sure I meet the deadline for sending in the originals!).

So please get creative, please contribute! Either by sending in your own card or by using my cards for your Christmas greetings this year!

Thank you so much in advance!

Nadin