Pucker up

"I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus, underneath the mistletoe last night. She didn't see me creep down the stairs to have a peep; She thought that I was tucked up in my bedroom fast asleep."

"I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus" Music and lyrics by Tommie Connor.
Originally recorded by Jimmy Boyd. It reached #1 on the Billboard charts in 1952.

Every year for as long as I can remember, when we opened up the Christmas decorations box at my parents' house, we would find a small sprig of plastic mistletoe that had come from a larger bouquet of mistletoe given to my Mum by some of her college friends in Scotland. Apparently they had surreptitiously hung it from the roof of my Dad's car (How one would do that surreptitiously, I'm not sure.)

The mistletoe sprig from my childhood home.

Once we pulled it out of the decorations box, the mistletoe would be unobtrusively hung above a doorway, with the idea being that anyone caught under the mistletoe was fair game to be kissed.

Mistletoe is the common name for a group of hemi-parasitic plants in the order Santalales that grow attached to and within the branches of a tree or shrub. Mistletoe takes its sustenance from the branches and trunk of the host tree or shrub.

The tradition of kissing under hanging mistletoe at Christmas time has its origins in Druid and pre-Christian cultures. Mistletoe was believed to have significant, almost magical powers and was associated with fertility and sexuality. In Scandinavian countries it was a symbol of peace under which under which enemies could declare a truce, or miffed lovers could kiss and make up. It is from this that the tradition of kissing is believed to have arisen.

Which, when you think about it, is a most suitable concept for a festival that brings families and friends together, sometimes for the only time in the year. How appropriate to celebrate a symbol of open and forgiving affection over the festive season. Christmas is a time when people come together, and the tradition of mistletoe is a device to break down barriers and have a laugh.

My parents are all set for this Christmas with their plastic sprig of mistletoe, but for the rest of us, where can we obtain ours?

According to a recent article in The Guardian newpaper, this year's British mistletoe crop is a bumper one. Shoppers can expect to find it well-hung with 'sticky white berries held between suggestively splayed leaves'. Lucky Brits.

But here in Australia, we have a mistletoe-with-berries drought. I've always associated mistletoe with cold climates in the Northern Hemisphere but in fact, Australia is home to 85 species of mistletoe.

As I researched mistletoes and examined the photographs, I realised I even have one of my very own in the backyard, attached to a Silver Birch tree.

Mistletoe growing in a Silver Birch tree

(at least, I think it's mistletoe)

However, Australian mistletoe doesn't bear its berries at this time of year, so even if we adopted some of our tropical and sub-tropical species for the festive purposes, at our (summer) Christmas time, there are no berries on our mistletoes.

Which is a bit of a problem. The tradition of mistletoe is that each time someone is kissed under a fresh sprig, one of the berries should be plucked. When the branch is berry-bare, the kissing ceases.

In the Antipodes it appears kissing won't even get a chance to begin. So I vote that we ignore the berry-rule for Southern lands.

Do you hang mistletoe in your house?

Megan and I would like extend the heartiest of season's greetings to all our Before Our Time readers. Enjoy this special time of year with your friends and families. Travel safely. Sing lustily. Laugh loudly. Eat muchly.

And kiss beneath the mistletoe at every opportunity.