It's an old Germanic tradition to cut small branches on December 4 (because of a mythical story about St Barbara) and force them to bloom.
(The things you learn on social media!)
Usually it's fruit trees. We picked a bunch of things, but the only ones that bloomed were the rhododendron banches.
They are supposed to bloom by Christmas Eve for the story, but mine bloomed by New Years, so I figured that I still the got the good luck for 2025, right?
According to legend, Barbara’s father, a believer in the Greco-Roman religious system shut her away in a tower, hoping that isolation would make his daughter see sense about believing in Christianity. Beyond his personal prejudice was the political reality that any association with the outlawed Christian religion would hurt his grain business.
On her way to her tower prison, she supposedly caught her robe on a branch. She broke off the branch and took it with her, standing it in a vessel full of water, where it blossomed exactly on the day she was sentenced to death. It is thought to be a symbol of good luck for the next year if the buds on your ‘Barbara Zweige’ blossom by Christmas Eve.
Poor Saint Barbara was tortured and beheaded but I think the branches are a beautiful tradition.
