A look at the inspiration behind Thomas Kinkade's painting The Christmas Cottage, and how the artist was motivated to begin his career after discovering his mother was in danger of losing their family home.

Necessity is the mother of invention. In the weeks leading up to Christmas 1977, Maryanne Kinkade has fallen behind in her mortgage payments and is about to lose her small house in Placerville, a town in California's gold country in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Her son Thom, who attends art school and is in his 20s, determines to make the transition from amateur to professional painter to help save the family's home. He seeks advice from an aging mentor.—<[email protected]>

Inspired by true events. It's 1977, and college student and aspiring but struggling artist Thomas Kinkade, without his big city girlfriend Hope, is heading home to Placerville, CA with his younger brother Pat Kinkade for Christmas. Tom is expecting it to be a typical Placerville Christmas with their single mother, Maryanne Kinkade, being her community-minded, helpful self directing the children's choir for the Christmas pageant among other things, and all the town's eccentrics being their eccentric selves. But their Christmas may end up not being a very merry one when the boys inadvertently learn that the bank will foreclose on the mortgage at the end of the year, Maryanne not even having the money to make repairs on what is the crumbling family cottage. They later learn that the reason for the non-payment is that Maryanne lost her job in the town not drawing the tourists, Ernie, the major town booster, who is trying to market the town as the Christmas tree capital, including a planned prime time televised event. Especially with their father Bill Kinkade being a non-entity in their lives in he long ago having abandoned them in pursuing his adventurous life, both Tom and Pat want to do whatever they can to help Maryanne, Tom accepting a job, one he believes beneath him in wanting ultimately to be known as a serious artist, to paint a mural depicting Main Street at Christmas, the fee not even close to the money needed for the mortgage back payments. As the town marches on toward Christmas including Tom with this job, a combination of the change in focus of the mural as well as Maryanne helping Tom's artist mentor, Glen Wesman, as he seems to be slipping away both mentally and physically as he pines for his long lost love Nicole, may be the impetuses to turn the tide for all concerned.—Huggo