About Those Poinsettia Plants

It would be difficult to imagine Christmas without these plants and their gorgeous colors.  

From the December 24, 2023, Chicago Tribune "New look at Christmastime flower" by Morgan Lee.  

This next part appears to be somewhat "woke."  "...attention is again turning to the poinsettia's origins and its checkered history of its namesake, a slaveowner and lawmaker who played a part in the forced removal of Native Americans from their land.  Some people would now rather call the plant by the name of its Indigenous origin in southern Mexico."  I have to wonder if the article's write would rather call it by its Mexican name?

The name comes from the amateur botanist and statesman Joel Roberts Poinsett, who happened upon the plant in 1828 during his tenure as the first U.S. minister to the newly independent Mexico.

Poinsett, who was interested in science as well as potential cash crops, sent clippings of the plant to his home in South Carolina and to a botanist in Philadelphia who gave the new plant its name, poinsettia after Joel Poinsett.

--Cooter

About Those Poinsettia Plants (Not Just for Christmas)

I have two poinsettia plants that are fifteen years old and also one I bought this last Christmas which has survived.  I have no luck with buying the real small ones as they always die on me, but when I do buy a bigger one they are much more likely to survive.

I put them outside on the front porch by the door (with a northern exposure that does get some early morning sun) and, of course, bring them in for the winter and keep them by windows with a southern exposure. The two old ones get some red leaves but not as splashy as the ones you buy at the store.  Their stems are quite woody now.

A will put them back outside in five weeks.  By then, they have lost many of their green leaves, but as soon as they get outside they fill out nicely and even bloom red a little.

Over the next several blog entries I will write about their origins.

--DaCootia

A Chicago Christmas-- Part 7: The Marshall Field's Elf

In 1946, Marshall Field's introduced Uncle Mistletoe, a "black-browed, winged sprite, wearing a cape and top hat," to compete with Montgomery Ward's popular creation, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Uncle Mistletoe lived with his wife, Aunt Holly, in Cozy Cloud Cottage on the eighth floor of the iconic department store.

Uncle Mistletoe's popularity soared with the 1948 debut of his holiday television program, "The Adventures of Uncle Mistletoe."

Uncle Mistletoe occasionally appears in ornament form on "The Great Tree" in Marshall Field's' (well, now Macy's) Walnut Room.

--CootUnc

A Chicago Christmas-- Part 6: About Those Marshall Field's Windows

Founded in 1852 as a dry goods business, Marshall Field's introduced its cherished holiday windows in 1897 with an enthralling toy display, a concept dreamed up by the store's official visual display manager, Arthur Frasier.  (And, of course, that toy window in "A Christmas Story.")

During World War II, the Field's design team began theming the windws starting with Clement Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas," so that they would tell a story as visitors strolled down State Street, from window to window.

Today, Macy's (who bought Field's) continues the tradition of holiday windows at the State Street store.

And, of course, there are all the decorations in the store, the Walnut Room and the giant Christmas tree.

--CootWindow

A Chicago Christmas-- Part 5: Hot, Cold and Snow

This entry is very appropriate for today.  This morning, December 23, 2022, it was -8 degrees outside here in Spring Grove, Illinois.  By 1 pm, it had "Warmed Up" to -2 degrees.  It is -5 degrees right now.

Christmas 1982 saw Chicago reach 64 degrees, setting a record for highest temperature on the holiday.

Just one year later in 1983, the coldest-ever temperature for the holiday was recorded at O'Hare at bone-chilling negative 17 degrees.

As for a very white Christmas Day, it happened in 1950 when Chicago received a whopping 5.1 inches of snow, setting a city snowfall record for that day.  Yesterday and this morning we got maybe two-tenths of an inch of the white stuff.

--CootHotColdSnow

A Chicago Christmas-- Part 3: The Christmas Ship

The three-masted schooner Rouse Simmons was a Chicago tradition every December, bringing a cargo of Christmas trees from up north to families across the city.

However, sadly, it sank off Two Rivers, Wisconsin, in a violent Lake Michigan storm  in November 1912.

The ill-fated eneterprise was run by Herman Schuenemann, known affectionately as "Captain Santa," who sold  his trees on the docks near Clark Street bridge.

When the ship left the dock at Thompson, Michigan, eyewitnesses noted that the schooner, packed with over 5,500 Christmas trees, looked like a floating forest.

The schooner's anchor was salvaged and now welcomes visitors at the entrance to the Milwaukee Yacht Club.

--Cooter

A Chicago Christmas-- Part 2: About Rudolph the You-Know What

These are Christmas stories connected to Chicago.

Robert L. May wanted to be a novelist but worked as a catalog writer at Montgomery Ward in Chicago.  Staring out his office window at downtown Chicago on a foggy day, May experienced his own lightbulb moment.

"Suddenly I had it!  A nose!  A bright red nose that would shine through the fog like a spotlight."

May considered naming the tiny reindeer with the red nose "Rollo" or "Reginald" but eventually settled on "Rudolph."

The Chicago-based department store printed more than two million copies of May's book "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in 1939.

The ninth and youngest of Santa's reindeer flew straight into the hearts of children across America using his luminous red nose to light the way.

--CootDeer

A Chicago Christmas: Merry Union Stockyards 'Hog Butcher for the World'

From the December 4, 2022, Chicago Tribune "Holiday Trivia:  Fun facts to make the season even brighter."

CATTLE CALL

Chicago's Union Stockyards opened on Christmas Day, 1865, ushering in by15 locomotive-pulled cattle cars.  

Situated on a once-swampy site that stretched from Halsted Street to Ashland Avenue and Pershing Road to 47th Street.

It took 1,000-plus men and 30 miles of ditches and drains to build the site that would bolster Chicago's already booming meatpacking industry and establish the city as "Hog Butcher for the World."

The 375-acre site would eventually accomodate over 75,000 hogs, 21,000 cattle and over 22,000 sheep in its 2,300 separate livestock pens.

--Cooter

'A Christmas Story's' Indiana Connection-- Part 1

Well, 'tis the season of my favorite Christmas movie of all time, "A Christmas Story" and, gosh, TBS is even showing it a couple times tonight ahead of its 24-hour tradional marathon starting Christmas Eve.  I'll try to watch some of it in between all the college football conference chanpionship games.

From the December 24, 2020, Chicago Tribune "Indiana sites a reminder of 'A Christmas Story' " by Philip Potempa.

Cleveland, Ohio, enjoys a holiday claim-to-fame connection with "A Christmas Story," since the 1983 movie was filmed there on location.

However, northwest Indiana still has better bragging rights, since the teller of BB guns, bullies and parental soap-in-mouth punishment, Jean Shepherd, scribe and radio broadcaster, fashioned the story and memorable characters from his own youth on Cleveland Street in Hammond, Indiana.

Ther movie's late director Bob Clark acknowledged in interviews that it was his preference to shoot the film in Shepgerd's all-too-familiar northwest Indiana.  However, studio location scouts preferred the landscape of Cleveland, even though Shepherd's actual childhood home still stands at 2907 Cleveland Street in Hammond.

Remember What Might Happen To Your Eyesight With the Soap Treatment.   --CootStory

Forty Things from the 1970s You Probably Won't Find in Today's Homes-- Part 3: Oh That Typewriter

21.  Radios*   I also have a bunch of boom boxes with radios.

22.  Funky lights  (colored lights)   Do Christmas lights I leave up in the bar year round count?

23.  Pod chairs  (ball or egg chairs)

24.  Popular pottery*  (Some of our lamps are pottery)

25.  Chrome finishes

26.  Typewriters*   Even though I haven't seen it in years, I know we have an electric one somewhere.)

27.  Pyrex dishes   (with color)

28.  Record players   (Hey, we still have three of them.

29.  Dark tones  (red, gold & avacado)  Our first home had an orange countertop in the kitchen.

30.  Exposed brick

Stuck in the 70s.  --Cooter

How 25 Christmas Traditions Started-- Part 3: Cookies, Candy Canes, Egg Nog, Wreaths & Cards

11.  COOKIES AND MILK FOR SANTA

Dates back to ancient Norse mythology, but Americans started it during the Great Depression.

12.  CANDY CANES

Whether eaten or hung from the tree.  Candy canes are the #1 non-chocolate candy seller during December.  The white and red candy arrived in the U.S. in 1847 from a German-Swedish immigrant in Wooster, Ohio. By the 1950s, the automated candy cane making machines had been developed and it really took off.

13.  BOOZY EGG NOG

This yuletide  cocktail stems from posset, a drink made of hot curdled milk and ale or wine in Medieval Europe.  Even George Washington had a special recipe.

14.  DOOR WREATHS

Have been around since ancient Greek and Roman times but took on a Christian meaning, but mostly seen as a secular winter tradition.

15.  CHRISTMAS CARDS

The first Christmas card was in England in 1843. The idea of a mailed  winter holiday greeting caught on with the Kansas City-based Hall Brothers (now Hallmark) in 1915.  According to the Greeting Card Association, today, more than1.6 billion of them are sold.  That's a lot of stamps.

--Cooter

How 25 Christmas Traditions Started-- Part 2: Logs, Calendars, Houses, Nutcracker and Sweaters

6.  YULE LOG

Part of ancient solstice celebrations.  But, airing on TV of a fire blazing away was 1966 on WPIX-TV in New York City.

7.  ADVENT CALENDARS

Early versions started in Germany in 1903.  Children open one small door or window each day in the countdown and get something.

8.  GINGERBREAD HOUSES

Queen Elizabeth I gets  credit for decorating it, but started in Germany

9.  THE NUTCRACKER

Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and originally choreographed by  Marius Petipa.    Premiered  December 18, 1892, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

10.  UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATERS

Sounds like a Canadian thing. Hosers!!

--DaCoot

How 25 Christmas Traditions Started-- Part 1: Trees, Rockettes, Charlie, Pickles & Elves

From the History site.

1.  CHRISTMAS TREES

Started in Germany  It is believed the first Christmas tree lot in the U.S. opened in 1851.

2.  ROCKETTES

First called the  Missouri Rockets back in 1925.  Officially became the  Radio City Music Hall Rockettes in 1934.  Give me one of those great line kicks!!!!!!!!!!!

3.  A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS

First aired December 9, 1965

4.  CHRISTMAS PICKLES

Hide one and te first child to find it gets something.  As a shareholder with the Mount Olive Pickle Cp. I like this one.  But growing up, I never had this.  Bah!! Humbug!!

5.  ELF ON THE SHELF

Since 2005.  We didn't have them growing up, but that was quite a ways before us.  My brother and sister are quite old.

Twenty to Go.  --CootChris

10 Christmas Themes from the Roaring 20s Compared to Today-- Part 1

From the December 9, 2021, ListVerse site by Joseph Dupree.

Go to the site and read a whole lot more.

10.  Santa hasn't aged a day.

9.  What about Santa's crew?  Mrs. Santa the same, but Rudolph didn't join until 1939.

8.  The Season of Giving     Definitely different gifts.

7.  What the Dickens!   The idea of a huge Christmas dinner was already here.

6.  Holiday Broadcasting  Well, no television.

--Cooter

Charles V. Gridley, USN-- Part 7: Back Home and Command of the USS Olympia

The year 1894 found Charles "Steve" Gridley back with his family as he served again as Inspector of the 10th Lighthouse District.  Happy times for him.  During his duties, he would have contact with the senior member of the Lighthouse Board, George Dewey, and the Board's secretary, Robley Evans.

In March  of 1897, Gridley was finally promoted to captain.  On June 10, he was ordered to take command of the USS Olympia, relieving J.J. Read in Yokohoma, Japan.  He embarked on the steamer Gaelic and arrived aboard the USS Olympia.

He didn't stay on board long, though, and returned to Yokohoma to visit friends he knew from his days on the USS Marion.  The formal transfer of command came four days later.  Captain Read's voice cracked as he read his farewell comments, and he was heartedly cheered by his men.  Gridley evidently had some "large shoes to fill."

Apparently he did well.  During his brief tenure aboard the Olympia, he appears to have been well-liked and respected by the ship's crew.  In one instance during Christmas of 1897, he raised all of the crew  one class (meaning he  reduced the length of  punishment of any man on report, and restored "liberty" privileges to many).

This had never been done on the Olympia before.  One  crewman recorded that Gridley was "one that loves his fellow men" an unusual sentiment between a crew and their captain.

--Cooter

About 'It's a Wonderful Life'-- Part 2: Becoming a Classic

When it was first released in 1946, as I said earlier, the movie was not intended to be a Christmas movie.  And, it initially flopped at the box office.  The film's copyright was not renewed.

So, in the 1970s, "It's a Wonderful Life" was free for broadcasters to air repeatedly.  And they did and did and did and did.  So much so, that it either became a classic for some or made others, like my wife, gag.  Fortunately, for some reason, I didn't see it that much.

But, for those of us who are fans of it, we began to notice that this less-than-jolly-ho-ho-ho movie was a great one.  And, a Christmas tradition was begun.  I am surprised that we don't have a cable station offering a 24-hour array like TNT and TBS  do for "A Christmas Story."

NBC currently owns the rights to the film and broadcasts it on Christmas Eve every year (and several other times beforehand).  In 2016, Variety reported that the network's  42nd Christmas Eve showing had  4.5 million viewers.

NBC will again rebroadcast the movie this Thursday from 7 to 10 CST.

--DaCootLife

About 'It's a Wonderful Life'-- Part 1: My Top Four Christmas Favs

From the December 19, 2020, CTV News "How the Second World War shaped 'It's a Wonderful Life' by Rachael Scott.

This is my third favorite Christmas movie, even though when it was made, it was not slated as a Christmas movie.  (My top four Christmas movies:

1.  "A Christmas Story"

2.  "Christmas Vacation"

3.  "It's a Wonderful Life"

4.  "Miracle on 34th Street"

I have seen all but the 1st and 4th ones, but hope to see the 4th this week and know that I will see the 1st several times between Christmas Eve and Christmas night for some reason.

--Cooter

Five Things You May Not Know About the Pilgrims-- Part 2: Not Plymouth, England, Been There, Done That, and Tolerance

3.  THE PILGRIMS DIDN'T NAME THEIR COLONY AFTER PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND.

The site had actually been named that before the Pilgrims had arrived and had already been shown as such on maps (with some variations of spelling such as Plimoth).

It is sheer coincidence that the Pilgrims had originally sailed from Plymouth, England.

4.  SOME OF THE MAYFLOWER'S PASSENGERS HAD BEEN TO AMERICA BEFORE.

Several of the crew had already been there.  One man, Stephen Hopkins, had already tried to settle in the New World at Jamestown ten years earlier, but his ship wrecked off the coast of  Bermuda, stranding him before his eventual return to England.

William Shakespeare admitted that he had based his play "The Tempest" on this story and had even named one of its characters, Stephano, after Stephen Hopkins, who was once one of his neighbors as well.

5.  THE PILGRIMS WERE RELATIVELY TOLERANT OF OTHER RELIGIONS.

They were strict on their interpretation of religion but did not attempt to convert others.  They did not observe Christmas, but allowed others to take the day off.  They allowed men who were not of their faith to hold public office.

Gosh, I Didn't Know Some of This Stuff.  --Cooter

Criminals Active Even During War Time in 1944

From the December 18, 2019, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois)  "Looking Back."

1944, 75 Years Ago.

"Chief of police, B.F. Peck today asked that the Secret Service department remind the merchants that check thieves and check forgers  do their Christmas shopping  with stolen and forged checks if merchants and housewives aren't particularly  careful.

"Chief Peck  stated that the government mails out nearly one million checks each day and that check thieves steal as many as they can from mailboxes."

Bah!!  Humbug!!!  Where's the Christmas Spirit.  --Cooter

Coal Restrictions (Because of the Coal Strike) Lifted in 1919, Just in Time for Christmas Shopping

From the December 18, 2019, MidWeek  "Looking Back."

1919, 100 Years Ago.

"Sighs of relief were heard all up and down Lincoln Highway yesterday and last evening.  The coal lid had been lifted and stores were running on regular schedule, lights  were on, and shoppers could shop as early as they wanted to.

"Merchants abided by the coal restrictions last week, although the shortened hours hindered Christmas trade and caused confusion and congestion during the few hours stores  were allowed to be open, but were grateful for the order which came Saturday announcing that all restrictions  were to be lifted Monday."

There was a coal strike going on in the United States.  No wonder the stores were staying open a bit longer as mentioned in the post yesterday.

--CooterCoal