Well, here we go down to the house. By the time this edition reaches homes and businesses, we will be just days away from Christmas. I hope everyone found a great Christmas tree and poinsettias from their favorite garden center. I imagine that the gifts are wrapped and in the case of this year sent to people who do not come.
I sometimes wonder if people understand how the Christmas tree and poinsettia work in terms of buying from a local garden center. At big box stores and grocers, poinsettias and Christmas trees are placed in stores on delivery. That means that anything that doesn’t sell, they don’t pay for, they just dump it. That’s why the plants you see hanging on those mega racks are treated as they are, it doesn’t matter if the plants die or recover or do well for you when you get home with your “deal”. At a local garden center we will pay for high quality plants and trees when they arrive. We have a reason to buy the best quality because we want them to sell and we want you to come back again and again. In most cases, we buy from local winegrowers who have their lives on the line to sell everything they grow. When you shop locally, there is a trickle down effect that really matters to many families who are connected to these businesses.
Christmas is steeped in traditions, I can’t imagine that anyone’s idea of a Christmas tradition is to go to a big orange or blue box to take their live plants every year where they could care less if it shows up or not. We feel very fortunate in the Jackson area that so many people try so hard to shop locally with us garden centers. I’ve always felt that if people try it just once, they’ll realize how much more rewarding it is to shop at a mom and pop store and how much more likely they’ll always leave with a surprise they never expected while finishing the ‘last piece. of gift shopping.
Garden goodies make wonderful gifts, I mean the kind you won’t find in soulless mega stores. For those of you who give the extra effort on behalf of all the garden centers in the area I say “thank you!” For those ready to give it a shot this coming spring, I’d say you’re in for a treat. It’s good for the community and I can promise you it’s good for your mental well-being. You will love the experience and you will love how you feel when gratitude is expressed to you as you shop in our locations.
I had better get out of my soapbox, after all, no matter what this year has lobbed us it’s Christmas time. We can let all our worries go up in smoke and have a little fun by turning our attention to our family and friends.
I will never forget the Christmases I spent away from home in other countries. I think I spent five Christmases away. One of them was in Cairo, Egypt when I climbed to the top of the pyramids of Giza on Christmas morning to look at the world, smoggy, but the most incredible views from up there. There is a fairly large Christian community in Cairo, so there were some familiar sights to see in terms of colorful lights and decorations. There were other backpackers around to celebrate Christmas with. We had street falafel and pita bread.
A few months later I was in Bethlehem to see the place where Jesus was born. Like all important sites to do with his travels, there was a huge cathedral built over the place where the manger was. The great cathedral was so filled with incense and smoke from the lanterns that kept the place lit that you could hardly see. Chalices were hanging from the ceiling by the hundreds, most of them burning with incense and some with myrrh. The use of incense increased the solemnity of the scene.
Frankincense is an aromatic gum resin obtained from an African tree that is native to Somalia. Myrrh gum also comes from a thorn tree in Somalia. The resin is harvested by repeatedly wounding the tree to bleed the gum. When the gum hardens it is yellow and clear. As it ages, it becomes dark with white stripes. I found myrrh for sale on the streets of a few African countries. At first the smell in the cathedral was quite pungent and very overpowering, but the longer I stood there and my eyes adjusted the more I liked the smell.
I had a spiritual moment looking at the giant golden star of Bethlehem above the place where Jesus was born. I imagined the scene that happened in the place itself and thinking about the cold night in the desert. I was lost in my thoughts and having a heavy moment when I was jolted back to reality by a tour bus group of Dallas visitors who pushed my scraggly car off the road so I could join hands and sing Oh Little Town of Bethlehem at the top of his lungs. My moment was over but it had been a long time before the place became his, it was time to move on.
Another Christmas spent in another country is forever burned into my memory bank. When I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Grenada, I often visited Grenada’s sister island, Carriacou. Carriacou is a small island with a very small population. I go there to find peace from time to time. After a couple of years in Grenada, which is an island that is 17 x 21 miles long, sometimes I needed to find peace and I didn’t feel like I was living in a fish, always watched as the center of attention. In Carriacou I could walk all day on the small island and rarely see or be seen by anyone, it was a breath of fresh air. There were only a few very low trees, swept by the wind, the rest were rocks and iguanas.
There was a tiny town there with many very quiet and laid back people. An English lady had an apartment downstairs that she let me spend the weekend in just for a little help around her place in exchange. He was almost never there, he left the key where I could find it.
One year I decided to try to spend Christmas in Carriacou. I went to the church they had there on Christmas morning. I had on my best shorts and cleanest t-shirt and was barefoot on a sanded wooden floor. I was dressed like everyone else, it was very casual. There were some stringed instruments that were played for Christmas carols. The children sang with all their might and their parents sang right along with them. I felt like I was in Whoville. The people who lived there didn’t have much, but their happiness that day was overwhelming. A wave of love overcame me like never before, and I ended up in uncontrollable tears from this feeling that was so real it was palpable.
The 20 or so people in the room started coming to my side and some of the kids hugged me which in turn made it even harder to turn off the water. I wasn’t embarrassed, it was a feeling of kindness and love that I had never experienced. I finally gathered my wits that made the others smile and sing even louder. Then the family invited me to their Christmas kitchen for more laughter and guitar playing.
It’s the moment that crosses my mind at least once a week. I will remember that Christmas every day as I walk through our main room where a piece of art by my cousin HC Porter of a girl in a wooden church seems to express the same feeling of jubilation that overcame me that day . It’s a piece called Rejoice! Coincidentally Mimi bought that piece for me as a Christmas present without even knowing that story. The child in an old wooden church that bears a striking resemblance to that moment. Mimi could never buy me another Christmas present and I would always be happy with the feeling that the artwork brings me.
I never quite understood it, but I know it had to do with the happiness and satisfaction that the people who live on this tiny point in the middle of the Caribbean have been blessed with. It reminds me quite often to recognize and love the most important things in life that are around us every day. It reminds me to strive for satisfaction in my life every day, putting first the first things that is the love of my family and friends in the beautiful life that has been offered to me.
I wish you all a satisfying holiday season with your families in one way or another. This will de-stress the holidays and snowball into some conversations and laughs with your folks that will lead to memories that won’t last. Merry christmas!
Insightful piece