Christmas is here. I’m pretty much a spectator for this holiday, for I just don’t get it. I know its religious significance and interesting social history, but something in me rebels at the over-the-top commercialization of the holiday. I enjoy the family, food and camaraderie of the holidays, but I’m pretty scroogish about the gift giving aspect of the enterprise.

Decorating for Christmas is a big deal, pumping untold millions into the coffers of almost everyone. Where the Christmas lights amperage race is headed is anyone’s guess, but I choose to remain a spectator.

The garden world — and its commercial sector, nurseries and greenhouses — have jumped into the Christmas spirit with gusto. Their contributions to the season — the Christmas tree and poinsettia — are key ingredients for the holiday.

I keep toying with the idea of writing a book on Christmas trees, for the topic seems sorely neglected, yet it has such a rich history. In its current incarnation, the tradition emerged from the forests of Germany in the 1700s, although older, non-Christian cultures in northern Europe had used evergreens as a part of their winter solstice celebrations for centuries before. Probably the incorporation of the tree into the Christian religion was an accommodation to existing practices, just as Catholicism in Central America and Mexico absorbed some of the practices used by native peoples as they were converted.

The Christmas tree made it to America around the time of the Revolutionary War. One possible avenue of introduction was the 30,000 Hessian soldiers the British hired to fight against the colonists. Of these, almost 5,000 remained in America after the war. Or, equally likely, the tradition could have been imported with the large number of German farmers that settled on William Penn’s land and formed the state of Pennsylvania. My own forbearers arrived on one of these boats in 1732, the first year of the big influx of German immigrants.

After the American Revolution, Christmas waned in importance because it was considered an English tradition, and people had quite enough of the English for a while. But, after Dickens published “A Christmas Carol” in 1843, the romanticized version of the holiday began to gain popularity on this side of the pond. The first Christmas trees were sold in New York in 1851. According to Tom Dillard, special collections director at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, the first Christmas trees in Arkansas were erected a decade or two after the Civil War in public spaces, not individual homes.

Today, it is estimated two-thirds of American homes have Christmas trees. Through the unholy alliance between big business and the urge to consume that defines the season, the basic Christmas trees families cut from the woods and dragged home through the snow morphed into pink tinsel trees of the 1960s to plastic trees made at the Fuller brush factory.

What to do with the tree once you get it home is no small matter. I’ve had my share of squabbles about how much furniture should be moved to locate the tree in the perfect space. Once, the quest for the perfect location for the tree was the cause of a major renovation that lead to removing a wall and all that ensues from such a drastic rearrangement of interior space.

My sister-in-law has the perfect plan for the Christmas tree. She has a tree on rollers she keeps decorated and stashed in a spare bedroom where it is parked, shrouded in a sheet like some mysterious ghost of Christmas past until it is wheeled into the living room for another season of merriment. The upside down tree — the one New Yorkers started hanging from the ceiling last season — is just the latest metamorphosis in the ongoing rush to deal with where to put the tree.

The other horticultural contribution to the season is the poinsettia. This greenhouse crop is the industry’s largest in terms of both units produced and dollar income. Red remains the favorite color, accounting for about 80 production of the production. Red is red, but a few years ago, I had a poinsettia trial in which I had 35 different cultivars of red; overall, I had 65 kinds. Some were early season, some late; some had narrow pointed bracts, others broad flat arrays. There are four poinsettia breeders vying for the growers’ attention, but since the early years of the 20th century, the Ecke family in California has dominated the market with their selections accounting for 70 percent of the industry sales.

Poinsettia has a historic connection to Arkansas, in a kind of round-about way. The plant was introduced from Mexico by the U.S. ambassador, Joel Poinsett, about 1830. For a time, the plant was given the Latin name poinsettia, but soon botanists realized it was a member of the large latex producing genus euphorbia, so they changed it to that genus. But by then, the common name had taken hold.

Poinsett was an important political figure in the 1830s and 1840s. After his stint in Mexico, he was appointed Secretary of War by President Van Buren, for whom our neighbor to the south is named. Poinsett directed the second Seminole War and tried to remove the American Indians from the Florida swamps and relocate them to Indian Territory. In tribute for his services, an east Arkansas county now bears his name.

Poinsettias were transformed from a specialty crop commanding high prices to mass market items now selling at three for 10 bucks. This change paralleled the rise of the big box retailers. Because of this drop in status and price, I now see these tender tropical poinsettias sitting in pots by the front door like pumpkins arranged for Halloween display. Inside the home, poinsettias are massed about the living room in a blaze or red, white, pink and now purple.

Genetically produced purple poinsettias appeared about five years ago. They didn’t appeal to the traditionalists, but some gorgeous glamour shots appeared in trade magazines and the popular press equated purple with elegance, so they commanded a premium price. These purple plants lead to the current condition: blue poinsettias sprinkled with glitter from Hobby Lobby.

No fooling, blue poinsettias! According to Paul Ecke, the only poinsettia cultivars showing increasing demand are the white ones because they are the ones spray-painted blue, purple and even green and then sprinkled with glitter. He estimates about a million of these will be sold this year. A bit of spray paint and glitter transforms your $3 poinsettia into a $12 value-added crop. Ain’t Christmas grand?

Now that I have this rant off of my chest, I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas!