It's a Christmas miracle!

Years ago I saw a beautiful Christmas cactus in bloom at the grocery store in December, so I bought it.  I brought it home, and a few of it's numerous buds bloomed.  The rest proceeded to fall off unopened.

I watered the cactus all year long and the next December, I noticed it forming some buds.  When it seemed close to blooming, I brought it out of it's corner in the room and put it on my coffee table (where I could see it and enjoy it).  It proceeded to drop every single bud over the next few days without blooming.

So I went to Kroger and bought another.

I watered them both all the next year, and saw them forming buds again in December.  So I brought them to my coffee table, where they repeated their pattern of dropping all the buds in a few days time.

So I went to Kroger and bought another.

Fast forward five years or so.  I  now have five Christmas cactuses.  Over the past years I've tried it all - I've fertilized them with cactus fertilizer, moved them to various spots of the room, watered them less and watered them more.  In short, I've toiled to solve the mystery of why my Christmas cactuses tease me in the worst way every holiday - threatening to bloom, until they're moved in the spotlight where they drop all their buds.

They are not near heat vents, as far as I can tell.

Maybe they just hate being moved?

The story has never changed, UNTIL:

2020, the year of plant neglect.  This is the year I have driven between two houses for six months, bringing some plants back and forth between, but leaving the bulk of my houseplants more or less neglected, receiving only occasional waterings.  There were a few casualties.

Honestly, the Christmas cactuses looked like they were barely hanging on when I returned home in November.  It had been two weeks since their last watering.  (I had forgotten to call the neighbor).

My expectations were zero.

But then suddenly I noticed two of the cacti growing buds.  One of them grew three.  The other grew about twenty, the most I'd ever seen.

So I moved them to the spotlight, on a ledge over the kitchen sink.

The pink one with three buds dropped two, but gave me one flower.  Typical.

But the other - the other!  The other STILL sits in the spotlight, over a week later, blooming it's little heart out.  It must have given me 15 flowers so far.

I NEEDED this in 2020!

2 of the 4 underperformers

Ok, so I STILL haven't solved the mystery of WHY one performed (finally!) while the other four did the usual.  But I'll take it.

(If there are any Christmas cactus experts out there with ideas, please tell!)

I'm sure a lot of people would throw them away when the holiday is over.  But I love TRYING to bring them back every year, even though I've ended in failure 95% of the time.  Why?  I don't know.

Having one succeed after all these years of trying has renewed my hope.  I guess I needed it.

This is the first year I haven't bought a new one at Kroger so I could have a guaranteed few flowers at Christmas.

I did it.  I made one succeed.  I have no idea how I did it, but I did.  And that hope will keep me going.

Not everything about 2020 was terrible.  I cling to the positives as the year draws to an end.  How about five blooming Christmas cacti for December 2021?

Perhaps not.  But maybe.

And that hope will keep me going.