The Christmas holiday comes with many traditions - from lighting advent candles and caroling to visiting Santa Claus and making cookies. Part of what makes any holiday special is all of the long-standing scents, sights, and sounds that we associate with that day. Each has a story and meaning that carries with us over the years.
Kiss & Tell
One very special custom from Christmases past is the significance of mistletoe during this festive season. Everyone knows that if you happen to find yourself under the mistletoe at Christmastime, someone just maybe getting a kiss! Whether this tradition is followed in real-life as often as we see it played out in stories and movies, it's still a truth universally acknowledged that kissing under the mistletoe is a holiday norm we all are familiar with!
Mistletoe Through The Years
The mistletoe plant can be poisonous to animals and can cause blurred vision, drowsiness, gastrointestinal distress, and potentially even seizures if ingested by humans. So how and why did a smooch under this toxic poisonous plant become synonymous with Christmas affection? Many cultures over the years have turned to this unique plant for symbolism and ceremony. Celtic Druids of the 1st century A.D. thought it had special powers to restore fertility as it blossomed during the winter months. The ancient Greeks also associated mistletoe with fertility which led to it playing a role in festivals and marriage ceremonies. The Romans used the mistletoe, if not for kissing under, but for a representation of peace and would reconcile their wartime differences beneath the mistletoe.
Nordic mythology also places a special significance on the mistletoe. Frigga, the Norse goddess of love, saw the mistletoe as a sacred plant. Loki, the god of mischief, shot Frigga's son. Frigga brought her son back to life under the mistletoe and thereafter decreed that those who stood under the mistletoe deserved protection from death as well as a kiss. In more recent history, if a girl in Victorian England refused a kiss under the mistletoe, she would be "ensuring" herself at least a year without any marriage proposals and possibly even end up an old maid.
Gift A Kiss
So next time you see an innocent-looking mistletoe plant overhead tied with a sweet red ribbon, you can share some history along with a kiss to a fellow willing participant. If no mistletoe is to be found, make your own special moment by visiting Urban Wick Candle Bar and selecting Mistletoe premium fragrance oil to scent your next custom candle pour. Pour one for yourself or gift one to a special someone who may enjoy a new take on the Christmas tradition.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/poop-tree-parasite-mistletoe-180967621/
https://www.history.com/news/why-do-we-kiss-under-the-mistletoe#:~:text=The%20plant's%20romantic%20overtones%20most,the%20hope%20of%20restoring%20fertility.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/mistletoe#:~:text=Mistletoe%2C%20the%20popular%20Christmas%20plant,hypertension%2C%20and%20even%20cardiac%20arrest.
