Holiday Collection

Collection Notes

Elevate Your Holidays with Heartwarming Stories

The holiday season is a time when stories come alive, and family traditions take center stage. I, too, have fond memories of those magical moments spent with my family, gathered around a roaring fire, sharing and listening to captivating tales of joy, love, and the spirit of the holidays. It's these cherished memories that have inspired me to ask the GreenPrints team to put together this new story collection. READ MORE

Stories

Stuffed with Christmas Joy

At Christmastime, I like to think back to the mid-1950s when I was 10 years old. It was the beginning of my two-week Christmas vacation. I had big plans for when I got home, but our 70-acre Ohio farm was 10 miles from school. The long bus ride home seemed endless. READ MORE

The Gift of a Wreath

For their Christmas holiday project, Cassie’s California Blue Bird troop planned to visit a nursing home. “Folks in nursing homes are often too old or too sick to be home alone,” Mrs. Peters, the group leader told the little girls. READ MORE

The Holiday Newsletter

Every winter, certain jet-setter friends of ours enclose a holiday newsletter in their Christmas card. This year’s concluded: "Although free time is pretty hard to come by since Christine’s promotion, she did take up scuba diving, which she loves, so we've made plans to spend the latter half of January exploring the underwater paradise off Aruba, which we've heard is totally spectacular!!” READ MORE

Oranges at Christmas

When I was a child in Britain, our Christmas stockings always had an orange in the toe. This wasn’t just a symbol but a real treat because I was a “war baby,” and oranges, which had to be imported, were rare. READ MORE

12 Poinsettias of Christmas Cartoon

On the first day of Christmas my neighbor gave to me a poinsettia! How lovely! On the second day of Christmas my best friend gave to me a poinsettia! Golly gee! On the third day of Christmas my colleagues gave to me more poinsettias! One, two, three! READ MORE

A Long-Ago Christmas

Her white hair was put up in a bun, and her pink cotton housedress reached down to her ankles. She sat in an old wooden rocker with a large glass bowl in her lap, gently rocking back and forth. READ MORE

A Gardener’s Christmas Poem

Read by Matilda Longbottom Listen Now: Marianne Binetti is a prominent Washington State gardener and long-time GreenPrints friend. She has offered to let anyone share this poem (you’ll find it at binnettigarden.com). Please, of course, give her credit. T’was the week before Christmas, and all through the yard, Not a gift was… READ MORE

Christmas Coffee Plant

At the middle school where my wife, Carole, and I teach, we have a small coffee room—with four coffee pots. Two perk regular coffee, one holds decaffeinated, and one has hot water for tea or cocoa. READ MORE

Mistletoe Cartoon

The word "mistletoe" comes from the Anglo-Saxon "mistel," or missel thrush, plus "tan," or twig. Really! The missel thrush is a bird that eats the mistletoe berries and sometimes deposits the seeds on a tree branch, where the mistletoe will grow as a semi-parasite. READ MORE

Gift Wrapped in Snow

A garden in the winter is a gift wrapped in snow. -Anonymous READ MORE

Christmas Treasure

One November, a red lumpy sphere mysteriously appeared on the cold marble table. There it sat for days on end—admired, silent, proud, waiting. At night it reflected light from the fireplace, its thick, hard shell slowly beginning to crack and split. READ MORE

The 12 Days of (a gardener’s) Christmas

Read by Matilda Longbottom Listen Now: On the 12th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me A box of chocolate truffles A négligée with ruffles The finest French cologne A convertible of my own A necklace made of pearls A silver comb for my curls First-class tickets to Rome A… READ MORE

A Christmas Carol?

The first spirit to appear had a skirt so wide it had to leave the room to change its mind. “I remember you,” I said. “You’re the ‘Christmas tree’ I cleverly planned out many Christmaseseseses ago! READ MORE

The Most Unforgettable Christmas Tree

It was Christmas Eve, 1947, but there was no Christmas tree in our apartment or in any of the other five apartments in our building. Our city, Dresden, had been firebombed and was now under Russian control. There were three pine trees left in what used to be a park, but anyone found cutting one of those down would’ve been shot if seen by a passing Russian patrol. READ MORE

Ornamental

If only Christmas came in fall, I’d never decorate at all. I'd hide my gifts in piles of leaves Outside beneath the apple trees. READ MORE

Simple Gifts

I worry about my garden in the winter. Most people don't. Most gardeners find January the one month that they can wrap themselves in a quilt next to the fire, feast on last summer's strawberry jam, and thumb through the catalogs, imagining their next year's tomatoes and pumpkins just as shiny and big as the ones in the ads. READ MORE

Gardening Barbie

Buying Christmas presents for my young relatives is always a struggle. I only see these kids once every few years when I go back home to Texas. I can hardly keep their ages straight, much less their clothing sizes or their favorite toys and games. READ MORE

The 12 Days of Gardening

On the first day we gardened, my true love said to me, “I’ve planted an evergreen tree.” On the second day we gardened, my true love said tome, “I think I overwatered, but I’ve planted an evergreen tree.” READ MORE

A Midwinter Mystery

It felt like a haunting. The chickens, for no discernible reason, had stopped laying eggs. Our rain gutters were suddenly plugged; likewise, and seemingly overnight, the chimney flue began to belch clouds of smoke into our living quarters. READ MORE

Pine Tree

Read by Matilda Longbottom Listen Now: Planted no bigger than a pencil, Work-worn hands lovingly tended you. Your thirst quenched by water from a green plastic hose. You are no hybrid—you’re nothing special. You are a seed dropped from a pine cone when it was ripe; Rescued by a neighbor and kindly… READ MORE

My Winter Friends

My husband came in one afternoon, looked at Fern, and asked, “How long are you going to keep that plant?” You’re probably wondering why a poinsettia was named Fern. I don’t know why, she just liked that name. It didn’t matter to me what she called herself. READ MORE

Poinsettiacide

Read by Michael Flamel Listen Now: The Christmas tree was hauled away long ago, the decorations boxed in the attic (except for the one you missed), the gifts long since exchanged for something you can use. The season has been properly retired … except for that garish blood-red plant which won't die,… READ MORE

It’s the Little Things

Sometimes it’s the little things. All right, a lot of the time it is the little things … This morning, I was in the bathroom trying to get my seven-year-old ready for school and my three-year-old just plain ready. READ MORE

My New Year’s Garden

As we grow older, New Year’s Resolutions are apt to become more important to us. The accumulating years begin to press down upon us, bringing acute awareness of our mortality. READ MORE

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