December 7

Growing up, my father was the purchasing agent for the family manufacturing business.  At Christmas all of the vendors he bought from would send gifts:  steaks, chocolates, mixed nuts, cheese and sausage baskets, and, inevitably, poinsettia.  At least a dozen plants each year, some huge with as many as 15 flowers on the plant. 

The big secret was that my mother hates poinsettia.  Really, really has an intense, negative reaction to them.  Each year she'd pick one small, festively colored plant (definitely not white) to keep on the end table by the front door, then we'd load the rest of the plants in her station wagon and take them to the local hospital for patients who needed some holiday cheer.

This is the woman who can kill any house plant.  But that one last, lone poinsettia would still be hanging in there come July.  It was a perverse reaction to all of her dislike and black thumb tendencies.  Come Independence Day, my mother would throw up her hands in exasperation and toss the plant in the garbage....  Mary