Life Is Like A Christmas Cactus

The best things in life are achieved when one is at ease in a happy place

Josephine Crispin
4 min readNov 27, 2024
White Christmas cactus in bloom; photo by the author

This plant, Christmas cactus, sounds a bit like a contradiction. It is a tropical plant and yet, it flowers in the coldest months of the year, like where I live in the UK.

In the first year of my Christmas cacti (I prefer the plural cactuses, actually), they gave me cute little blooms — pink, red, white.

I placed the little indoor plants in the conservatory, which I prefer to call the sun room.

They are cacti so I thought, they would love the sun even if filtered through double-glazed glass. The blooms that they gave were enough to make last year’s Christmas and the rest of that winter delightful.

But as soon as the three stopped flowering, the plants started to get ill. I panicked. I love these cactuses. Did I overwater them? No. Did I forget to quench their thirst? No, not really.

I started relocating the three.

In the bedroom at first. No, they did not like it there.

In the living room, next, by the window sill; another no.

In my home office by the window where midday sunshine would slightly dazzle the trio through the glass window. Still, it was a no from the…

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Josephine Crispin
Josephine Crispin

Written by Josephine Crispin

Writes about writing, nature, animals, the environment, social issues and spirituality. Editor and published author of romance novellas amongst other genres.

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