• Grandma’s Christmas Cactus Always Blooms Right on Time

The holiday season can rush the brain with memories of people lost, traditions faded, and places long visited but now disappeared. My childhood (and beyond) featured South Dakota grandparents and a feeling of never-grow-up freedom filled with fishing everywhere, flying kites in infinite fields, and working gardens and crops until you were dirty but awash in delight. And deliciousness.

As for Christmas? Picture sledding fast being pulled behind Grandpa’s old, gray tractor. Dancing in a circle around the tree singing songs in both languages with the Danish relatives. Solemn midnight, candle-lit services in tiny country churches followed by glorious feasting in the basement served up by beaming farm ladies.

• Travel young, travel forever

Perhaps this is how I learned the art of travel, simple as it was. We packed the station wagon with my two brothers, at least one dog, and not much more. After all, everything we needed was already awaiting at the farms. And no matter where we lived at the time or what I was leaving behind, the spacious prairie brought that beloved feeling we all still seek and crave: Getting away.

Another world, just a few hours’ drive from home. Yet as remote and removed as if you just landed in another country. Indeed, the country can feel like another country. Far away. In the best possible way.

• Where longing and endurance together take root

This Christmas cactus grew for ~60 years in my Grandma’s South Dakota pantry, until she finally moved out and passed shortly thereafter. The family appointed me as caretaker. And some 20 years later, I have several transplants in pots all over the place, including the original which now spans 4 feet. 

Regardless of location or attention, each plant blooms with uncanny punctuality throughout the holiday season. So I think of my Grandma often, relive those seasonal memories…and can almost smell her cookies baking and hear her fearless laugh.

This living keepsake, Grandma’s favorite pantry plant, both honors the vanishing memories while keeping them alive. Grandma would be pleased—and likely love the fuchsia color so much that she’d sew herself an apron in the same bright palette. And then cheerfully bake us more treats. 

Merry Christmas cactus!