My Christmas Cactus

My Christmas Cactus is blooming. It doesn’t bloom often, and it doesn’t bloom at Christmas, so I wonder about the name!

This beautiful plant was a slip given to me from a friend’s cactus, and there is a story.

My Christmas Cactus in bloom.

My friend’s grandmother brought the “mother plant” along with her, when she immigrated from Alesund, Sweden in the late 1800’s.

She traveled to the United States, by herself, from Sweden to meet up with her future husband who had settled in Friberg Township, in northern Minnesota. Several other Swedish immigrants settled in the area and they built a Baptist Church, which is still standing. My friend’s grandparents had 10 children and gathered together for a family photo on their 50th wedding anniversary, in 1936.

My friend, Kay, holding a photo taken in 1936, of her extended family. Her grandparents, their ten children and their children’s children. Kay’s mother is holding Kay in her lap…Kay was the baby at the time of the photo.

Just like this Swedish immigrant family, my Christmas cactus has many family members because many slips have been cut and replanted from the mother cactus…

I’m happy to have this succulent. Even when it’s not in bloom it has interesting foliage and is a pleasant green all year long.

8 thoughts on “My Christmas Cactus”

  2. I love the story connected to this Christmas cactus. I, too, have a Christmas cactus, a slip from my maternal grandmother’s plant, which my mom got upon Josephine’s passing in 1956. Mine bloomed profusely in November and has maintained blooms since then. A few are just opening now. I’ve never had my cactus bloom for this long. I agree that the name doesn’t necessarily fit. If you leave the cactus in a dark place, you can control the bloom time. I’ve tried, but never quite get it right for Christmas blooming.

    1. Wow, you must be doing something right to have it continually bloom!
      They are nice plants to have around. 😉

  3. I love Christmas cacti!! I have one I recently learned is a thanksgiving cactus, and other one that is an Easter cactus. Maybe there is a valentines cactus?? 😉

    1. Brenna! So fun to hear you like the “holiday” cacti! I never heard of a thanksgiving cactus or Easter cactus. Do they look the same?

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