Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus Kartinas! Merry Christmas cards. For Latvia with love!

As half Latvian in my heritage I have recently been trying harder to reconnect to my roots. As a child I had a really strong Latvian cultural and spiritual upbringing. My mother took us to many events those are some of my best childhood memories. The richness of ones culture is priceless and I am regretful and ashamed at times of how my mom and I lost a lot of her heritage as she got old and frail. Just in the last two years of her life I was able to rekindle some of her happy memories by simply cooking her favorite Latvian foods for her. The change in her mood was so dramatic that I kept learning all the new recipes. Losing her was the hardest thing that has happened to me so far and I think its because in these last two years I was able to get close to her again as a caregiver. Being a caregiver is like being married or being a mother- you have to do a lot of really unpleasant things together- hospitals, medicines, bath someone and care for someone when they cannot care for themselves. You can't leave that person alone for long periods and you need to keep thinking of ways to keep that persons mental state strong and thinking. Crosswords, games, music and cooking.

Now with her gone, I have been working on new projects to slowly reclaim that part of my life and my identity. It was stolen from my mom and then me for a variety of reasons. I now am getting it back one day at a time.

This project was done quickly and got some great responses from people- I have sold over 100 cards so far and really appreciate the support as I grow to try more new things. The cards integrate latvian symbols and put them in new contexts- the morning star is shown like a snowflake for example in the blue card. The three stars from the Freedom Monument in Riga are now on the Christmas Tree. Did you know the first Christmas tree was in Latvia?

The cards are done in Adobe Illustrator and printed on watercolor paper with a opal sparkle powder finish that shines when you move the card. I have the files in PDFs and all links in an asset file. The red matches the red of the Latvian flag. If you would like to order some cards you can email me at britabrookes@gmail.com. I have a new series coming out for Spring Easter and Jani seasonal events and also plain notecards to write letters with.

Paldies! and Paldies! Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus!