Christmas Blooms and Grammie

I do not have a green thumb. My mom loves to garden, spending hours in the summer months outside digging and planting. We joke that she has to move every 10 years or so in order to get a new garden to start on. I, however, did not inherit ANY of that desire.

I do have a few houseplants, however, that I have managed to keep alive by some miracle. My favorite one is this Christmas Cactus, which I inherited from Grammie. She and I were exactly 62 years apart, sharing a birthday.

When I was in high school, Grammie gave me some shoots off her Christmas Cactus that I grew in my bedroom. I managed to keep it alive for a few years, and it even bloomed a couple times, but it was small and eventually died. I remember feeling terrible. This plant was from my Grammie, and despite it being a cactus that should be easy to grow, I had managed to kill it!

When Grammie died 5 years ago, I got the large Christmas Cactus from her living room. I love the Christmas Cactus because it usually blooms around Christmas and Easter, which to me makes it symbolic of the new life Christ gives us. Not unlike what Christ has done for me, I was given a second chance with Grammie's Christmas Cactus, and I am determined NOT to kill it this time! Last year, however, it wasn't looking too good. My mother-in-law, who also has a green thumb, visited and gave me tips to nurse it back to health. It worked, and it even had a couple of buds last Christmas! I was thrilled!

The plant has been looking good this year, so I've been hopeful it would bud again. So I was delighted when we returned from our vacation to find about 8 buds on my Christmas Cactus! The fact that we turned the heat down to 50 in the house while we were on vacation helped give it the cold snap it needed to bud. It's in the bathroom on the main level, so every time one of the girls goes to the bathroom, they shout at me to come and look at the blooms! :-) It's thrilling for them, too, and I hope to pass on healthy shoots from their Great-Grammie's Christmas Cactus to them someday.