Meet Pat, Christmas angel

Pat Burnip would have preferred not to be outed on Facebook.

Vernon’s answer to the Scarlet Pimpernel, she was leaving her beautiful handpainted Christmas ornaments on tree branches at Polson Park and a local dog park.

Snowmen, chickadees, owls, moose and deer, they are all pretty cool.

Some ornaments remained there for days, most are taken home by the person who discoved them.

Her motive is nothing more than to pay it forward.

Everyone wondered who this gifted artist was.

When her identity was finally revealed on a social media website (probably the same people who gave away the secret from “The Crying Game”), she actually liked it better when she was anonymous. Not even her two granddaughters — ages 9 and 6 — knew it was she who was placing the ornmanents.

Pat is making the best of her 15 minutes of fame.

“I like Christmas but I prefer doing random acts of kindness,” she said in an interview with The Daily Courier.

She began by painting rocks with inspirational messages but when the weather changed, she switched to ornaments.

What we know about Pat is that she’s a retired social worker, mother of three and she just recently discovered her love of painting.

She doesn’t consider herself an artist and has never sold her work. Her new-found passion began at the end of a stressful day at work. She came home and painted flowers on the door of her potting shed. It took her four hours, and although she cringes now, it was the start of something special.

Now retired, she’s never taken an organized art lesson but draws advice and ideas from the internet. She shares her new-found love of art with her granddaughters as well as the Vernon community.

With 37 days left until Christmas, if you weren’t in the holiday spirit yet, chances are you are now after hearing about Pat.