Charleston Newspapers.com
Charleston Newspapers.com
Once upon a time, a little Mexican boy was going to church to see the crib. He thought hard about a gift to the Christ Child bring, but had no money to buy one. "Jesus will understand," thought the little boy to stop by a few bare branches, and weeds are on the side of the dusty road to collect " because my gift will be given with much love. "
When the boy reached his destination, the people had already bought into the church on the gift he turned around and look as if they saw what it was, they laughed at him.
When the little boy decided to march to the altar and laid the branches by the edge of the crib, an abundance of bright red blossoms suddenly began to bloom.
Since that day, the poinsettia is known worldwide as "The Christmas Flower.
Perhaps this story is a fairy tale. Maybe not. Who's to say?
It is certainly right that the origin of Christmas star in the south of Mexico, wending its way to the United States of America in the custody of an admiring Joel Roberts Poinsett.
Poinsett (1779-1851), was born in South Charleston Carolina and studied in Europe and the USA, studied medicine, military strategy, and the law. He became a member of South Carolina's House of Representatives, and then held many prominent political positions. He also led the founding of the Smithsonian Institution.
Fluency in Spanish (as well as French, Italian and German) resulted in Poinsett diplomatic appointment by President John Quincy Adams became the first United States Ambassador to Mexico (then Minister of Mexico).
This was a tumultuous time in Mexico, and to make matters more difficult, Poinsett's impossible task was the Mexican land we know as Texas, buy for a million dollars. However, Mexicans did not want to sell and Texas, in 1829, she invited them to leave the luckless Ambassador Poinsett.
In was asked in 1828, shortly before his absence was Poinsett, an avid amateur botanist, visiting the Mexican state of Taxco where he first saw the plant, which eventually be named after him. He sent samples to South Carolina, where she served as "Mexican Fire Plant were." The Aztecs called the plant "Cuetlaxochitl" and from 14 Until the 16th century, used to control the SAP fever. The leaves were also used to make dye. Montezuma, the last of the Aztec kings, was forced to Poinsettias have caravaned from the south into what is now Mexico City, because the plant can no longer grow at such high altitudes.
After his return to the U.S., in cooperation with the plant world Poinsett friends and botanical gardens. Around 1836 scholars William Prescott was Hicklin, author of the History of the Conquest of Mexico, and after which the city is named Prescott Arizona, the honor given to the renaming of the facility. It is known since Poinsettia.
While these facts are interesting, there there are those of us, the apocryphal story of a little boy and the miracle of Christmas Flower dear.
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Maggie Van Ostrand’s award-winning humor column appears in local hard copy newspapers and online publications in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Her articles appear regularly in the Chicago Tribune, and have appeared in the Boston Globe, Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Amarillo Globe-News, Sun-Sentinel, and many other national newspapers, as well as national and niche magazines.
A prolific writer, Maggie churns out three humor and one human interest columns weekly, plus a monthly humor column.
She is a member of National Society of Newspaper Columnists, the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop, and the Society of Women Writers and Journalists in the U.K.
Maggie was also a judge of the worldwide Erma Bombeck Writers’ Contest in 2004, 2005 and 2006, and judge of 2007 Arizona Press Club Award for journalism.