The Christmas legend of the poinsettia
I’m thinking of poinsettias and rosemary.
Poinsettias, the beautiful, big, mostly red flowers are beginning to show up all around us. They are the harbingers of the Christmas season, the biggest season for us Christian believers.
The legend of the beautiful flower is fuzzy and warm. It goes something like this ... a poor young girl in Mexico, Maria, needed a gift to bring to the cradle for Jesus at her church on Christmas Eve. She had no money to buy a gift, so she tried to make a blanket which didn’t turn out and was at her wits end.
She was walking towards her church on Christmas Eve in tears, when an angel stopped her and asked her what was the problem. She told him of her lack of a gift for baby Jesus. The angel explained to her how Jesus didn’t want a big expensive gift, he didn’t want a finely crafted article, he wanted her heart. He wanted her love given to freely in joy, not tears. The angel then told her to pick some of the weeds from the roadside and put them in the cradle as a symbol of her love. She did this and placed the humble, tall, green weeds in the manger straw of the cradle at her church amid smug looks and low comments from the congregation. As she turned away, the reaction from the crowd changed. She turned back to see that now the top of each tall green weed was a beautiful, flaming red flower, outshining any other gifts laid before the baby Jesus. They named the plant the ‘Flower of the Holy Night.’
What a great legend! The history of the flower is that Joel Roberts Poinsett, a U.S. ambassador to Mexico, brought the flower back to the U.S. for larger propagation in 1825. But the poinsettia is known worldwide. Besides Mexico, it is known in Spain as the Pascua, the Easter Flower. In Chile and Peru it is the Crown of the Andes. In Turkey, it’s know as Ataturk’s flower, named after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic.
Symbolically, in the Christian faith, the red star shaped leaf represents the Star of Bethlehem which led the Wise Men to Jesus. The rich, red colour is for the blood he shed. The bright, white colour represents his purity.
But rosemary, you say! Yes, rosemary. Rosemary is an awesome, fragrant herb with its own full history that I won’t go into here. But suffice it to know that thousands of years ago, rosemary was used to keep insects away and provide a nice clean fragrance. Besides cooking it was also used in laundry and strewn in the tombs of the dead. It was put in straw and hay.
It is not farfetched to imagine Joseph getting some rosemary from outside the barn and placing it in the manger straw of the cradle of Jesus. It is also believable that his swaddling clothes held the sweet fragrance of rosemary. The herb came to be known as a symbol of remembrance.
Today, in my home, there are just my husband and myself. We go out of town to our children’s and grandchildren’s home for Christmas, so we don’t put up a Christmas tree.
I do usually buy a very large poinsettia, put small white lights within the plant and put it on a stand where it looks just beautiful. I think of everything this plant represents.
This year, I think, I will buy some fresh rosemary and place it in the bottom straw and remember too. Peggy White is a freelance writer for many publications. You can email her at bpwhite777@cogeco.ca and let her know your Christmas traditions.