McGinnis: An honest guide to Christmas gardening

Published 11:26 pm Saturday, December 20, 2025

Ah, Christmas gardening – that glorious time of year when we attempt to impose cheer on plants that would frankly prefer we leave them alone until spring. If you’ve ever decorated a cactus, tried to convince poinsettia to live past New Year’s, or fought a squirrel for custody of your outdoor lights, congratulations, you’re probably a Christmas gardener!

Let’s take a stroll through this festive, foliaged-filled adventure.

First, there’s decking the halls and shrubs. Nothing says “holiday spirit” quite like wrapping 400 feet of twinkle lights around a tree that swallows them whole. Every year, my husband and I march outside with a ladder, a tangled ball of lights, and the kind of optimism usually reserved for toddlers. Three hours or so later, we return inside covered in pine sap and rose thorns, with a string of lights that only half works, because three mysterious bulbs have staged a revolt.

Pro tip: If your bushes end up looking like they were decorated by a caffeinated raccoon, you’re doing it right.

Then there’s the beautiful bell of the ball – Poinsettias. Poinsettias are the divas of Christmas plants. They’re gorgeous, dramatic, and require exactly the right amount of light, water, temperature, and whispered affirmations to stay alive. Too cold? They wilt. Too warm? They wilt. Look at them wrong? Wilt. But we buy them anyway, because nothing says Christmas like a plant that challenges your self-esteem.

Bonus fact: Every gardener has, at least once, dramatically shouted, “WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME BACK?” at a poinsettia.

Can’t forget the mistletoe. Mistletoe is the one plant that doesn’t care about your gardening skills – it just wants you to kiss someone. Honestly, it’s the ultimate holiday matchmaker. But since the only mistletoe you’re likely to encounter at the store is plastic, gardeners sometimes try to grow the real thing.

Spoiler alert: It’s a parasite. It literally thrives by sucking nutrients from other plants. If that isn’t the most on-brand Christmas metaphor for your in-laws staying over, I don’t know what is.

Oh, there’s the Christmas Cactus. It blooms when it wants. It thrives on benign neglect. You can’t kill it. It is the anti-poinsettia. This plant knows you have a million holiday tasks to juggle and politely blooms anyway. We don’t deserve it!

Winter gardening is essentially you versus nature. And nature usually wins. You carefully mulch your garden beds, wrap your shrubs like tiny green burritos, and cover delicate plants with frost cloths that immediately blow into your neighbor’s yard. On the bright side, this does count as cardio.

So embrace the chaos! Christmas gardening isn’t about perfection – it’s about embracing the delightful mess of the season. Hang the crooked wreath. Decorate the prickly plants. Let the squirrels judge you. Because at the end of the day, holiday cheer grows best where you plant it – preferably somewhere that doesn’t require a ladder!

Smith County Master Gardeners wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

— Smith County Master Gardeners are volunteer educators certified and coordinated by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.