Christmas Traditions: Kissing Under The Mistletoe

We're only following Tradition!

There are many strange and curious Christmas customs – many of which evolved from older pagan rituals - but the most interesting one is the 'Kissing under the Mistletoe' one.

As everyone knows, the safest place to publicly kiss someone you always wanted to is under the Mistletoe at Christmas. This is one time of the year when people are – usually – willing to be broad-minded and tolerant.

In Victorian times, it was probably the only annual chance. Kissing under the Mistletoe was considered as an unofficial declaration of the soon-to-be-announced engagement. It was considered unlucky and unfortunate not to be kissed – that meant you probably were going to miss the bus to the best institution of the human condition, Marriage, the entire coming year if not permanently.

The custom was to hang up some Mistletoe and, each time a guy kissed a girl under it, he plucked off one of the white berries. After the berries were all gone, the kissing ceased. But customs evolve. These days, while we still let them inspire us to begin with, we don't hold back on account of no berries.

Another custom involved snitching Mistletoe twigs from your local Church Christmas Decorations, putting them under your pillow at night, dreaming about that chap you'd such a crush on, and then in the morning tossing the twig into the fire. If it burned smoothly, you could count on a smooth future. If it crackled, there was marital blitz in store for you.

This is how our Tradition evolved

The tradition of kissing under the Mistletoe evolved from the Celtic and the Nordic people who believed that the evergreen Mistletoe had magical, medicinal, and aphrodisiac properties.

Mistletoe was also considered as a symbol of Peace by the quarrelsome Norsemen and, if by chance they happened to encounter Mistletoe growing nearby, depending on their mood, they either kissed and made up or they put away their weapons and rested to fight another day.

Mistletoe plays a villainous role in the Myth of Baldur. When Baldur, the Norse God, was born, his mother Frigga made all the plants, animals, and nonliving things on earth promise her that they would never harm him. She, however, forgot the Mistletoe and this oversight was used by the mischief-maker Loki to evil advantage. He made an arrow from a Mistletoe twig and tricked Baldur's blind brother into shooting it at Baldur. Baldur died and winter descended on the planet and it was only after he was restored to life by the Gods that things returned to normalcy. Frigga, a surprisingly unvengeful Goddess, decided no one should suffer again through the Mistletoe and so made it sacred and a symbol of happiness.

Haven't you ever wondered how the name 'Mistletoe' came about?

Curiously, the Mistletoe which conjures up such romantic Christmas imagery can hardly be considered romantic on its own merits.

First of all, it is a parasite and, honestly, whoever considered a parasite romantic? Except, uhm, another parasite (it's the holidays, people, and some of us are infected by the 'there's someone for everyone' holiday cheer). Seriously though, the Mistletoe can only grow on the barks of other trees and get its nourishment from them and often at their expense. In Europe, it's found commonly on Apple Trees and somewhat less commonly on Oak Trees – its rare occurrence made the Oak Mistletoe even more valuable to the Ancient Celtic Druids, who cut it with a golden sickle and made it an integral part of all their various rituals.

Then, secondly, the seeds of the European Mistletoe can only become capable of germinating after having passed through the digestive tracts of birds – particularly the Mistle Thrush - and, it was by noticing how the Mistletoe always seemed to spring forth from the shit of this bird, that the sharp-eyed Ancients came to give the Mistletoe its name. 'Mistle', which sounds so lovely and misty, actually means shit in old Anglo-Saxon, and 'toe', which emerged from 'tan', means twig. As they did not know the scientific workings of such seed propagation, they deemed it a miracle and regarded the Mistletoe with awe.

We should marvel at it ourselves. I mean, armed as we are with all the scientific data and everything in this very modern age, we still go forth enthusiastically to kiss under the 'Shit Twig of the Mistle Thrush that grew up to become a Parasite'.