Percy the Puny Poinsettia

If you know me, you know that I have OCD.  Obsessive Christmas Disorder.  I love Christmas more than most things.  I love the sparkle and the happy people.  I love decorating and the music.  Mostly I love it because it is one of the rare memories I hold of happy days in my adolescence.  It was the one day ALL of the people were nice to me (except that one year when they made me believe I only got coal, but that’s for another blog post someday).

Every year we listened to the Elmo & Patsy album over and over.  You know the one?  Grandma got ran over by a reindeer?  I’m pretty confident that I could probably sing the entire album even though it’s been almost three decades since hearing it last.  But on that album there is a hidden gem and my favorite Christmas song of all time.  I love it because I’ve always felt like Percy and, growing up, listening to this song gave me hope.

Percy the puny poinsettia
Is hanging his bloom in dismay
If they had just kept him wetta
He’d be a houseplant today
Folks liked the other plants betta
Now he’s alone on the shelf
Even a plant with no uncle or aunt
Shouldn’t spend Christmas Day by himself

Holiday shoppers would stop by the counter
And pick up a plant to take home
Until one by one all his friends were adopted
And Percy was left all alone

Then into the store on the night before Christmas
Came a poor little girl who was cryin’
But when she saw Percy her eyes opened wide
And she said, “Can I please make him mine?”

Now Percy the puny poinsettia
Is standing beside Mr. Tree
His leaves have never been redda,
He’s as proud as a flower can be
Somebody made him feel betta,
Rescued him off of the shelf
Even a plant with no uncle or aunt
Shouldn’t spend Christmas Day by himself

Percy started out the way I started out.  Hopeful.  But unfortunately, he relied on someone to nurture that and sometimes that doesn’t happen.  Sometimes we are left in the care of someone who may not take our need to be nurtured as a priority and so we are put on a shelf.  Alone.  Hungering to be loved, cared for and CHOSEN.

Sometimes it takes someone special to notice something special.

For me that has not been in human form.  My teary eyed little girl is God himself.  Most of my life I’ve waited for someone to love me.  Care for me.  Notice me.  And most importantly, CHOOSE me.  No human has ever done this.  But God chooses me every minute of every day.  God loves the forgotten.  He chooses us over and over.  My saving grace was “allowing” myself to be chosen.  To accept that I am no longer sitting alone on a shelf, unnoticed, unwanted, unloved.

I’m chosen and loved by the ultimate love CREATOR.

My Christmas tree is the loving arms of the one whose birthday we celebrate.  My “too much” to some is just perfect to Him.  The years I spent in the desert searching for someone to love me and choose me have all been counted and redeemed.

I’ve spent way too much of my time here on earth living the first part of the song, but by God’s grace I’m loving living out the second half of Percy’s story.

I AM chosen.  I AM loved.  I AM worthy to stand in the most sacred of places.  Next to my tree.  Praise God for his abundant drink of water.

You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil.  As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you. ~ John 15:16 MSG

Let go of “not enough” and bear your fruit, sister.  Even if they make you believe it’s “too much”.  God has a purpose.  Go live it out.  Merry Christmas, YOU!!

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Tina Kachmar

Owner at Stumble to Happy

Mom to three, Grammy to one. Divorcee’. Exasperating God since 1972.

Lover of all things Jesus. Coffee. Wine. Dessert. Not necessarily in that order.

Philadelphia Eagles, baby!! Fair weather cycle rider.Reformed “mean girl” stumbling her way to joy.

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