Last-Minute Christmas Idea: Give or Be a Pineapple

“When life gives you lemons, sell them and buy a pineapple…” ~ Davin Turney

The same advice applies if life requires a last-minute hostess gift.

Ananas Comosus, Hellebore niger, Euphorbia pulcherrima, Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus, and Schlumbergera. AKA Pineapple, Christmas Cactus, Poinsettia, Artichoke and Christmas Rose. Any of these will make a beautiful, house-warming, party-pleasing gift.

All are beloved in the holiday months, and evocative of the solstice season. All are beautiful and/or yummy. All are toxic and/or prickly. Like the winter solstice, when night and day are a 50/50 proposition, each consists of a curious mixture of pleasant and painful or smooth and sticky. Which makes them so very interesting.

Yet it is the pineapple alone that has long been a truly luxurious, status-confirming gift for any VIP you’re hoping to impress. Do you know its history as a first-rate, hostess-pleasing, house-warming present?

Click on this Eater post for more details, but meanwhile you can just take my word for it that the pineapple became an object of great desire after being “discovered” in the Caribbean and South America by European colonizers in the early 16th Century.

Dutch economist Pieter de la Court said, “One can never be tire’d with looking on it.” And, indeed, it became a popular motif throughout Colonial America in the 18th century. You can find it today throughout the South – represented in wallpaper, tea towels and aprons, or fashioned from brass to make door knockers, trivets and tree ornaments. (Click here to see the Colonial Williamsburg collection of pineapple merch – speaking of gift ideas.)

It became a symbol of welcome and inclusion. (Ever seen a pineapple on a doormat? Now you know why!) And today, just like 150 years ago, a princely, pungent pineapple can make your arrival to any party or new home a royal entrance.

Unless, of course, the grocery store is out of pineapples or you’re short on change to begin with. In that case you can show up empty-handed and simply follow Katherine Gaskin’s advice: “Be a pineapple: Stand tall, wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside.”

Photo credit: Chestnut Hill Farms