GratiTuesday - Family Blooms

When I was a little girl, my mom and my great-grandmother had a friendly little competition going.  Each year as Christmas approached, they would count the blooms on their Christmas cacti.  Mom's would be big and beautiful and covered in blooms - and then we'd go see Grandma, and she'd slyly point out her cactus, which not only completely covered her floor-model TV, but reached nearly to the floor on either side.

As a kid, I loved watching the two of them laugh about their plants and count the blooms, pretending to try to one-up the other, knowing that both of them were very talented Christmas cactus people.

So imagine my delight when my Secret Santa gave me a small Christmas cactus my first year of teaching.  I was very excited and planted it in a new pot after Christmas, anxiously awaiting the blooms .... that never came.

I still have that Christmas cactus ... and it finally bloomed!  It manages to pop out a bud every other year or so, but this year was special.

Do you you see it?  Maybe you need a close-up.

It's got TWO blooms - in the same year!  Never mind that the silly plant is blooming a few months past Christmas - better late than never, right?


The kids are completely amused at my excitement over these two little red buds.  Maybe someday they'll understand.

And maybe someday, given another sixty or eighty or two hundred years, I'll be able to coax a few more blooms out of it.

'Til then, I think Mom and Grandma are winning.

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