Dashes of color pass through the streets of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Tulips! Get your free tulips!

People in the Netherlands celebrate National Tulip Day every January on the third Saturday of the month. Normally, a gigantic garden in front of the Royal Palace is packed with flowers—as many as 200,000 of them! Anyone can come by and pick a bunch for free.

When people think about the Netherlands, a few things might come to mind. Windmills? Likely. Wooden shoes? Maybe. Tulips? Most definitely. The Netherlands is famous for the largest flower field in the world. Guess what it’s full of. Roses?

 Of course not. Tulips!

Farmers plant tulip bulbs in faith during the fall. In the spring, they’re richly rewarded with fields carpeted in showy, bright blooms of every color.

Tulip Day announces that tulip season has begun. Do tulips really bloom in January? Nope—unless they grow in a greenhouse. The Tulip Day buds sprout indoors. Tulips won’t begin to bloom outside in Amsterdam until the end of March.

This year, pandemic lockdown rules restricted large public gatherings. So instead of gathering in front of the palace, the Dutch handed out flowers beside Amsterdam’s famous canals. “It is a gloomy and uncertain time for many people with the ongoing pandemic,” says Arjan Smit, chairman of Tulip Promotion Netherlands. “So we’re going to provide some joy. We hope to create many happy faces by handing out tulip bouquets.”

Encourage one another and build one another up. — 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Why? God is the source of all that is beautiful. He made people to enjoy beauty—and to bless each other by sharing it.