The beautiful colors of the flowers and the fragrance they spread around are all forerunners announcing the arrival of the festival of fun and revelry. Flowers like Poinsettia, Christmas trees, each with their interesting folklores make them almost an inevitable part of adorning the day for the special occasion.

Christmas Flowers

What better way to adorn a special day than with the colors and fragrance of the beautiful flowers that add a festive look and feel to any occasion. There are florists who customize flower arrangements to suit all occasions. There are a variety of flowers that are associated with Christmas. Among many, the Mexican Poinsettia popularly used for Christmas decorations add charm to the festive occasion. It is the native flower of Mexico and is known by several names like ‘Flower of the Holy Night’, ‘Flame Leaf’, ‘Christmas flower’, ‘Lobster flower’. These flowers look exquisite in their bright red hue yet discovering them in colors like white and pink is also not a rare sight. These star-shaped bracts are believed to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem. It has been named honoring the former US ambassador to Mexico, Dr. Joel R. Poinsett of South Carolina who introduced the flower to the United States when he returned home in 1835 from his ambassadorship. History has it that Dr. Poinsett had such strong fondness for the flower that he dedicated the last years of his life to making the “poinsettia”, a universal symbol for Christmas.

Other common Christmas flowers include Christmas cactus with its green leaves and pink or red flowers, holly with green leaves and red berries, Christmas Rose,Christmas tree, Christmas garland, a tradition brought into America from Europe by the early settlers and of course the Mistletoe, symbolic of peace, goodwill and love. Some of these flowers have long legends associated with their origin as the Christmas flowers. The legend of Poinsettia comes from Mexico. It is believed that two poverty stricken kids, Maria and Pablo who loved Christmas and looked forward to it would be miserable as they couldn’t afford to offer anything in the church to express their love and gratitude towards Baby Jesus. One Christmas Eve as these two kids set forth for the church service, they decided to pick some roadside weeds to gift it to Baby Jesus, during the dramatization of the manger scene. As they placed their offering around the manger, the green leaves miraculously turned into bright red petals and in no time the manger was surrounded by star-shaped flowers, now commonly known as the Poinsettia.

Christmas rose also hailed as the Snow or Winter Rose, is traditionally regarded as the true Christmas flower. This flower is linked with the story of the birth of the savior and how a little shepherdess named Madelon, desirous of offering a gift to welcome the new born King, was blessed by an angel with a beautiful white flower tipped with pink, later named as the Christmas Rose. The conceptualization of the Christmas tree as an essential part of Christmas, has its root in medieval Germany where there was a tradition of decorating an evergreen with apples to symbolize the “Paradise tree”. Many years before the celebration of Christmas began, the Germans used evergreens to decorate their homes. They believed that these trees represented life and immortality and would protect their homes from evil during the coming year.

So it’s true that Christmas flowers with their legend and beauty blossom to glorify in “the name of the father, of the son, in the holy spirit Amen” and thereby redeem this pious occasion from being further commercialized.