Christmas Legend: The Poinsettia

December already! Do you know what that means? It’s time to buy me a gift! I accept cars, trips and checks with lots of zeros!

No, I’m kidding! It’s time to start our special holiday series! This year’s theme is story time with plants.

There are many tales and legends surrounding holiday plants: remember last year’s article on oranges? I told you about the legend of Saint-Nicolas, who gave out golden balls in socks that were drying by a fireplace.

This year, here’s what I’m offering: I’ll write detailed, entertaining versions of these Christmas stories (which are usually only a sentence or two long) for you.

I repeat: I will write these stories based on existing legends. Many details will be added, but the background will always be a “true” legend. It’s all about having fun this December!

The Legend of the Poinsettia

Once upon a time, somewhere in Mexico, in a little village called Jardinero-Perezoso, there lived a little girl named Ellana. She was a well-behaved little girl. She always helped her mom with the washing and she helped her dad in their little cornfield.

Ellana’s family wasn’t rich, far from it. In fact, they were very poor. Ellana’s clothes had often belonged to several people before her. When her dad found holes in his gardener’s clothes, her mom would cut them up to make clothes for her daughter. And when those clothes were nothing but shreds, she kept the pieces to make socks.

When she had the time, Ellana’s mother would sacrifice a few pieces of fabric to sew flower motifs on the girl’s clothes, and this was, for her, the most wonderful gift.

When Ellana worked in the field with her dad, she dutifully pulled out every weed with her nimble little fingers. She knew that for a good harvest, corn and squash had to compete with other plants, and she made a point of doing her job well.

Whenever she came across a pretty wild flower, she treasured it and brought it home to brighten up the kitchen table. Ellana loved flowers. Summer was her favorite season, when she found the most colorful. Red ones seemed to her to be the most beautiful, but also the rarest. Ellana never took her eyes off the pretty red bouquet as she ate her corn soup.

Winter was a more difficult time for Ellana’s family. With no flowers to brighten the table, little food and few resources, morale was often low.

-Mama, why aren’t there any flowers in winter?

–There are two answers to that question, my dear, as there are to all questions: the scholar’s and the poet’s. Which do you want to hear first? Which do you want to hear first? *

Ellana thought for a moment. Like all poor little girls, she liked to dream, so she opted for the poet’s answer.

– Flowers are like Christmas: if they were present every day of the year, they wouldn’t be so special.

The girl thought for a moment. Of course, she understood, having been deprived of everything, how much more we appreciate something when we’ve missed it. But she couldn’t imagine a day when she would no longer marvel at a flower. So she asked the scientist for his answer.

– Plants make flowers when they’re ready to make fruit, and that takes a lot of energy. They wait until there’s a lot of sun to bloom, so they can make good fruit.

Ellana understood, but that didn’t stop her from being disappointed when the days began to shorten.

Christmas Eve was always a difficult time for Ellana. The other children would go to church in their best clothes and lay presents in front of the crib for the Christ Child.

As for Ellana, she had nothing to offer. The previous year, she’d been able to put down a small squash, but this year, the weather had been less than kind and her dad had lost almost all his crops: only the weeds seemed to have grown, and the field was full of them. She was hungry and ashamed not to be able to honor the Church with a gift, however modest.

When she saw the other children playing and singing in front of the church, she was so ashamed that she ran away to cry. In an empty field behind the church, she cried her eyes out. How she wished she’d offered a squash again this year. Or a flower. A beautiful red flower. It would have been a wonderful gift!

Drying her tears, Ellana looked around, hoping to find a flower as special as Christmas, one that would have managed to bloom, even if there was little light. But all she saw was a bush of weeds. The same weeds her daddy made her pull in the field.

It wasn’t the red flower Ellana had hoped for, but she plucked a few branches, figuring it was better than nothing. After all, she was an expert at plucking these weeds.

Holding her bouquet of weeds tightly in her small hands, the young girl returned to the church. Just in time, she placed her humble bouquet in front of the empty cradle, her hands trembling with a mixture of shame and pride. Just then, the great church bell rang midnight, and the Infant Jesus figurine was carried in and placed in the cradle. And a miracle occurred.

Before Ellana’s dazzled eyes, tiny flowers appeared at the end of the branches of her bouquet, and the large leaves closest to the flowers suddenly changed color to the most vivid and magnificent red.

All over the village, the plant had bloomed and its bracts had turned red. In the morning, as the sun was rising, everyone saw Ellana’s father’s field, which was completely overgrown with this miraculous plant. It was called the Christmas Star, and everyone wanted to buy some from the poor family.

Never again did Ellana find it difficult to give the Infant Jesus a present. Every Christmas, she would approach the crib in her prettiest dress and place a bouquet of poinsettias.

*Quotation borrowed from Pierre Bottero’s Ellana book series. If you don’t know this French author of children’s literature, it’s your divine sign to buy your teens his series for Christmas… And to read them yourself on the sly.

Words as Gifts

I hope this first Christmas story has touched you. I can’t repeat it often enough: it’s not the gift that’s important, it’s the intention and the people with whom we share the moment.

I’ve chosen to start my series with this story of gardening and gifts because I want you to know how lucky I am to have an extraordinary audience like you. I appreciate it, I love you (as cheesy as that sounds!) and if I could, I’d give you each a branch of poinsettia to thank you for being here, week after week, and for always leaving me such positive feedback. It’s quite rare these days to have such a friendly virtual community!

See you next week for a story on a funnier note!