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Happening
at the Crossroads
December 15,
2008
by Coggin
Heeringa
Little
toy trains, dolls, and nutcrackers, loaned by the ever resourceful
members of the Friends of Crossroads, grace the Collins Learning Center
at Crossroads at Big Creek. And this week, Greg Meissner of Meissner
Landscaping completed the decorations with a stunning poinsettia
plant.
Last week I wrote that holly was revered by the people of
northern Europe, for it remained red and green during the white months
of winter. Unable to stifle its use, priests fabricated legends about
the crown of thorns. And that led to our fondness for a Mexican weed
called the Flame Leaf.
According to a charming legend, a Mexican
child (based on the references I have read, the child was either a
little boy or a little girl) was very poor (pah rump pa pa pum) and
thus, had nothing to bring the figure of the Christ child at the
cathedral. Told that any gift given with true love would be acceptable,
the child snatched a handful of weeds and laid them on the
altar.
Miraculously, the weeds turned to red blossoms, later named for
Dr. Joel Robert Pointsett, the ambassador to Mexico who introduced
these festive plants as a Christmas tradition in the United States.
The
red blossoms are not flowers at all. They are leaves which miraculously
turn red around Christmas. The actual flowers are those little round
yellow balls at the top of each stem and the modified leaves are called
bracts. Most of the year, the bracts are green.
The miraculous
change in color is a response, not to true love, but rather, to
photoperiod — the ratio of hours of daylight to hours of darkness.
Poinsettias are light sensitive in the extreme, which gives growers
absolute fits. Twelve hours of light and twelve hours of dark! or
they simply will not turn red.
Several years ago,
I tried this at home, dutifully taking the poinsettia plant from
the previous year in and out of a broom closet each day. But, I messed
up once or twice, and failed. This takes more discipline than sticking
to a diet.
Fresh flowers (even if the petals are really leaves)
are a joy that we’d love to share. The Collins Learning Center
will be open all week, but we’ll have the cider mulling and cookies out
on Sunday, December 21 and on Christmas Eve from 2 - 4 pm so
folks can stop in and also share this wonderful place with out-of-town
family and guests.
The Collins Learning Center will close at 4
pm on Christmas Eve and reopen at 2 pm on Sunday, December 28. Trails
are open. Walkers are asked to use designated trails. Crossroads is
located at 2041 Michigan (County TT) in Sturgeon Bay.
Many of
the Past News articles may be retrieved from this directory,
indexed and named in the following manner: 080101-news.htm
where
the first two numbers are the year, the second two the month and the
last two the date.
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