CSI Christmas Flower

By Amy Mullis, Home Ownership Editor

I love Christmas--known around my house as the Festival of Poinsettia Murder. It’s a ritual I indulge in every year. What says Merry Christmas better than a spray of bare, wilted stems and a blanket of cast-off red petals covering the floor in a crunchy carpet? My gardening skills are nonexistent; my picture hangs like a Wanted poster on the wall of  Home and Garden stores everywhere.  And if summer was devoted to destroying daffodils, winter is the season for sending off the Christmas flower.

If it’s tradition that makes the holiday season important and cements the ties that bind into place, I owe it to my family to kill the holiday Poinsettia.

So this season will see all my familiar and comforting rituals: the manger scene whose assembled cast expands daily to include snowmen, stray wisemen, an occasional ox or angel from long lost nativity sets, and at least one zombie action figure; the Christmas tree decorated around the bottom with an assortment of bells and wind chimes to let me know when the kitties have staged a daring raid on the festive gift bags, and a crumpled Poinsettia that holds my hopes and dreams that this will be the year that Santa finally delivers a green thumb.

Because once the wrapping paper lies in mangled piles and Christmas lights wind themselves back into tangled knots, hope is what Christmas is all about. Don't forget to enter our Home Owner Writing Contest.