Remember your loved one this Christmas

🌺 Remember your loved one this Christmas 🌺

This holiday season, bridge the distance between your heart and the resting place of your loved one with a radiant tribute. In a year of new beginnings, we are introducing an online poinsettia service, especially for those who may not be able to visit the cemetery during the Christmas season.

Embrace the spirit of Christmas by adorning the grave of your loved one with a beautiful poinsettia, a symbol of the holiday’s warmth and cheer.

Donations of poinsettias are being accepted to spread Christmas warmth with others.  With your help we will fill the cemetery with beautiful poinsettias for all!

Please include the first and last name of your loved one in the space below.  If you are donating a poinsettia please indicate donation in the name field.  All poinsettias will be placed on graves on December 21 by our Mission staff.

🌺 How the  Poinsettia Became Associated with Christmas 🌺

One of the most traditional flowers we see during Christmas is the Poinsettia, but did you know that this flower is actually native to central Mexico and its history is related to the Franciscans that came to convert the native populations in the Americas?

Native to mountain areas in central Mexico, the Aztecs used to call it Cuetlaxochitl, which translates to flower that withers, and was used during winter rituals for its medicinal properties and to produce a red dye.

The first European who wrote about this beautiful flower was Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, a Franciscan Historian, in his book “General History of the Things of New Spain” in the mid 1500’s. By the early 1600’s Franciscans all throughout central Mexico, used it during Advent and Christmas to decorate altars in December, and it was particularly popular for processions and cribs. It was actually Franciscans from the Convent of San Bernardino de Siena, in the city of Taxco, who gave it its name in Spanish: “Flor de Nochebuena” or Flower of the Holy Night.

Its connection to American Christmas, and its name in English, comes from Joel R. Poinsett, an American diplomat and botanist who served as ambassador in Mexico after its independence in 1821. Poinsett traveled to Taxco in the winter of 1827, and fascinated by the beautiful flower, took cuttings back to the U.S, where he studied them and replicated the flower in a controlled setting. By the mid-1800’s, several nurseries in the US were growing and selling poinsettias. The flower quickly traveled to Europe, and Vatican has been using it to decorate St. Peter’s Basilica for Christmas since 1899.