Our "Christmas cacti" are in full bloom. They are always early and, despite the name, are never in bloom on the day itself. In the USA they are called Thanksgiving cacti and that would be more appropriate for us, as that is roughly when ours are in flower.
Although easy to care for - you can forget to water them for weeks and they will survive, Christmas cacti (or Schlumbergera to give them their correct name) can be very difficult to force into flower - unless you understand what triggers the process. A Sclumbergera is prompted to flower by changes in day length. As the days grow shorter - in the autumn - the plant is prompted to produce its flowers, which you see starting to develop like tiny claws at the end of each strand of fleshy leaves. If the plant does not experience this change in day length it will not flower.
From this you will see that if your Schlumbergera is in a room where you spend a lot of time it will never really experience shortening days. When it gets dark you compensate by switching on the lights. This can upset the plant's flowering mechanism so that you get few - or no - flowers. The best place to keep your cactus is in somewhere like a hall way or a room you do not use constantly. We keep ours in a room we use during the day, but not so much in the evening, and I put it next to the window so it has no excuse - it can see the days begin to shorten very clearly!
Schlumbergea are quite forgiving, so don't fret if you use the room on occasional evenings, or if you accidentally leave the light on - that will not matter, but it you use the room every evening and the hours of illumination remain pretty similar throughout the year, then you are likely to experience problems with flowering.
These plants are also really easy to reproduce. Just snap off a couple of nice fleshy sections of leaf and push the end you have snapped off into some soil. It should root and you will get another identical plant. Don't do this while it is in flower or about to flower though - as then the plant will be putting all of its energy into flower production and not root growth. If it attempts to flower while you are waiting for it to "take" then just pinch the flower out, so that all that energy goes back into root growth.
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