I went to Nuccio's Nursery with the same question. I went home with a Rudolph. It's a charmer! It's a Anemone form, not a formal double but it blooms at Christmas for me every year. The shape is neat and pleasing and so has a dignified look about it. Also, this variety is a compact grower for me and does not sprawl. The little Sasanqua Yuletide is still going strong for my neighbor right now.

Thanks, Kitty! I will definitely check it out!

Yuletide is blooming lkike crazy here, and Professer Sargent (spelling?) is starting to crank up. Probably your best bet is Yuletide.

Sandy

In doing some research on the internet, I came across a camellia called Nuccio's Bella Rossa: red, formal double, that is said to bloom for the entire Camellia season. This sounds ideal. Anyone have any experience with it?

Kay, I couldn't find anything on Rudolph. The Nuccio's website doesn't appear to be working and there was nothing else on it anywhere else. Ideas?

Life is not that perfect. There are a few nice red formal double camellias that hardly bloom timely on Christmas. You may get 'Bella Rosa', 'Black Tie' or 'Glen 40'. You can practice to use gib solution(from ACS) to treat a few flower buds in early Nov.

Gibbed flower buds tend to bloom earlier and larger. Again it is not a perfect solution. Yet it is at least one of the ways.

Happy New Year, donnabaskets!

As has been hinted at in earlier posts, your best bet is to have several different red varieties in the location where you wish to see the flowers. Local weather issues will, of course, affect all plants' bloomage but, maybe it will not affect them in the same way. Thus by having different varieties, not all reds may necessarily be blooming at Christmas but at least one or some may be.

Once you compile a list of reds, see if you can find a nursery that lists the months when the reds bloom and choose based on the starting month. For example, choose a red that starts blooming in October, another that starts in November and another that starts in December. Or try varities that start in November, December and January.

Yuletide, my normally-late-Nov-early-Dec flowering pick in Zone 7b/8a, would have been my suggestion for you too but, last year and this year, it has bloomed in the following months. Go figure! Grumble, grumble...

Luis

Now that is a great idea, luis. I wouldn't have thought of it, but it makes perfect sense.
You lost me on the gibbed flowers, longriver, but I will check out your three suggestions. Maybe they will be the way to stagger bloom times! :)