"I have an older brother for whom it is very difficult to purchase gifts for. Usually, for birthdays or Christmas we get him a gift card, but this year I wanted to give him something that told him how much I love and appreciate him.
I started three different projects:
1. A calendar, which I stopped creating because I realized he travels too much to view it daily.
2. A storybook, which I stopped creating because I could not find the right fit and was running out of time for holiday deadlines.
3. Finally, I decided on a 16x20 canvas.
Did I mention that he is a professional photographer? That made the task a little more difficult because he is picky about photos on canvas. I went through several photos I had scanned and selected three. I played with several different backgrounds, cropped, un-cropped, then cropped again, and found the perfect quote about how “being a brother is sometimes better than being a super hero.” Then I hit the purchase button and crossed my fingers.
On Christmas morning after all of the gifts were opened, I told him to close his eyes. My daughter and I ran down the hall and grabbed the canvas. I had my daughter hold it and told my brother to open his eyes. His reaction was priceless; he cried! For the first time in my life, I made my brother cry! I have tried for years to make him cry and never, ever, ever could get him to cry. I even created a scrapbook by hand that took me six months and he did not cry. But he cried and cried and hugged me and my daughter so hard that we cried as well. He said he had never received anything so beautiful and was so impressed with the quality of the canvas."
I love these moments! Thanks so much for sharing LuAnn!
