Last year, Dave’s cast and crew from Merry Gentlemen ~ A Christmas in Mediocrity, gave him a John Deere tractor and a little guy with a cardboard box on his head. There was such a character in his original play and it is a treasure to him now at his desk.
They also presented him with a lovely, blooming Christmas Cactus and on cue, when the holidays pass, the flowers fall and red balls form, later shriveling and dropping to leave a plain green plant for the year. Throughout the spring, then summer and into fall when I totally ignored it and wondered if it would even live took GREAT care of it, it didn’t have much going on. It just sort of sat in the corner, in natural light or not, depending on my mood. Since Thanksgiving, it had been tucked into the corner near the fridge, out-of-the-way, thank-you very much!
But the other day, while Christmas decorating, I moved it out thinking perhaps it could use a drink since it has been a couple of weeks. And voila! It is full of buds waiting to unfurl and several beautiful cactus flowers (which reminds me of Goldie Hawn, whom I adore).
And I just wondered – how did it know? How did the Christmas Cactus know that Christmas is almost here and it was time to bloom again? I didn’t feed it. I didn’t tell it about the snow and cold. I didn’t try to decorate it with bulbs. I did not once mention Christmas to this Christmas Cactus, yet on cue – it knew!
It turns out it is thermo-photoperiodic and likes long, dark nights and colder days. It actually emerges in it’s’ fullest beauty when the rest of the world has glazed over, sleeping through the winter, looking like death. Perfect!
Being thermo-photoperiodic, I suspect, my little Christmas Cactus knows by Whom and for Whom it has been created and is slated to rejoice wildly {and with colorful beauty} along with the rest of us during the Christmas season!