Dear Reader:

A few days back…Susan put this gorgeous picture of her Christmas Cactus on her Facebook site. I saw it and oohed and aahed over it. She replied back: “Don’t you recognize it…you gave it to me several years ago for Christmas?”

I know for sure whatever (Thanksgiving/Christmas) cactus I gave Susan sure didn’t look that good when I gave it…Wow! What a green (and pink) thumb! I am thrilled…the gift that keeps on growing and blooming…if given to the right recipient!  (At Doodle’s and Anne’s…their cactus looked equally beautiful…. I just loved them all)

I thought it would be interesting to find the legend behind the Christmas Cactus... it turned out to be more difficult than first expected. It took several “dead ends” before finally finding one story with an actual legend attached.

Santa’s North Pole – Legend Of The Christmas Cactus

* Just in case, for whatever reason, you can’t get into this link…here is a quick synopsis.

A Jesuit missionary went to Bolivia a long time ago to try to convert the natives. His name was Father Jose. He was the perfect role model for them to follow… he demonstrated his care and kindness through preaching, teaching, building, healing, helping, giving, and praying. But no matter how hard he tried ….he just didn’t seem to be reaching them.

Christmas Eve found him on his knees in sadness and discouragement in front of a crudely built altar. What was he doing wrong….he had even taught the children Christmas hymns…but on this holiest of nights…he was all alone in an empty chapel.

Suddenly he heard voices…then singing…it was children’s voices singing a familiar carol. He ran to the door and looked out…all the children of the village were carrying candles in one hand and blooming green branches in the other…cacti they had cut from the jungle as a present to the Christ Child on his birthday.

They quickly decorated the altar, the windows, doors, and pews…the pink blooms reflecting off the flicker of hundreds of candles. Faith and hope returned to Father Jose that special Christmas Eve.

Today the Christmas cactus still symbolizes faith and hope to all believers who follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

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A couple of weeks ago I was leaving Doodle’s…and this beautiful bloom captured my attention…I grabbed my Iphone out of the car and took the picture:

When I asked Doodle the name she said that Lisa Hadstate (Hollow Tree Nursery)  told her it was called Christmas Sasanqua. It is so beautiful! Doodle even tried to help me find a legend but the sites kept confusing camelias and sasanquas… making it hard to decipher the right story or legend.

That is one problem with the internet (among others)… much of the information out there is second and third hand information….leaving an abundance of stories about Christmas roses, for example, that aren’t even roses. (It appears that if a plant or flower blooms during the Christmas season someone, somewhere, starts to call it a Christmas Something…)

But then sometimes…the most beautiful, accurate stories are the personal true ones, told in first person …during a family’s most poignant moments.

  That brings us to my adorable niece, Carrie Simpson…Harvey and Doodle’s daughter…and her story.

This “green” story deals with peace lilies…and sadly… where do we find most indoor peace lilies in clusters? …funeral homes and church sanctuaries and cemeteries. It is only after a funeral that the family begins to divide up the lilies for interested family members.

And this is where Carrie’s story begins. Dee Dee, our children’s beloved grandmother died in 2005. There were many peace lilies sent to the house and funeral home. After things had settled down, following the funeral, the peace lilies were divided among the “girls” and grand daughters…including Carrie.

For the first few years following Dee Dee’s death Carrie’s peace lily just seemed to struggle… it didn’t die… but it didn’t bloom either. It just seemed to exist…as if waiting on something or someone to change its journey.

When Poppy, Dee Dee’s husband and beloved father/ grandfather, died in 2013…Carrie found herself staring at the peace lily… hoping to see some life in it…especially now with Poppy’s death still so sad. (Both Dee Dee and Poppy died in the spring of the year…the season of rebirth).

And then it happened…One day a bloom appeared…and Carrie intuitively knew what it meant…(she remembered sending this email message to her mom…letting her know about the bloom that finally arrived and her interpretation of it)….she wrote:

Time passed and Carrie thought no more about it… except for a smile whenever she passed it. A few weeks went by and suddenly she realized there were two blooms on the peace lily…she had never had two blooms before.

She started laughing because she knew exactly what the message was this time too….and sent this email to her Aunt Julie.

Dee Dee says Poppy has arrived and all is well!

Today the peace lily sits quietly in Carrie’s home…keeping its secret messages to itself…waiting for the right moment to share again.

* Last night my computer was “frozen” and I was tired. I couldn’t take a chance on pulling a peace lily photo off the internet…so I called Carrie to go over the sweet family story of this incident again and asked her if she still had that peace lily. She did and said she would send a photo of it and some emails that came from that God’s Wink time …back  in the spring of 2013.

We both got so interested in looking at dates and emails and laughing about Dee Dee being so happy to have Poppy with her again…that the ‘story behind this story’ was a fun night with my amazing niece Carrie. Thank you Carrie for perking me up and providing a time for us to remember and share together.

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My gift for my grandchildren this Christmas is a tree for each of them. You might remember I planted my first Japanese maple last December, almost a year to the day. Since it is the oldest…it is named for Eva Cate!

I returned this year and had Lisa help me pick out three more to form the perimeter around the garden…the second one she said would probably be the tallest…so Rutledge it is…

The third tree is for our two months old Jake…still kinda green but plumping up fast!

And the last tree is for our little angel in waiting…small but ready to take on the world…and the cousins! Will the baby be a “Dolly Dingle or a Billy Bump”? Only time will tell…

So until tomorrow…the best stories begin at home.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh