- When it is kept
- All season
- Where it fits in the year
- All through the season
The Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote that the druids of Gaul honored mistletoe that grew on oak trees and cut it with a golden sickle.1 He wrote about Gaul, not Britain, and not about Christmas. English Heritage says that linking druids to Christmas mistletoe in Britain was an idea of 19th-century antiquarians, and it is unproven.2
Church records from the late Middle Ages list holly and ivy bought for winter decoration. A London account of 1444 says houses and churches were decked with holly, ivy and bay.2 Kissing under the mistletoe is first recorded in England in the 1780s.2,3 In the Victorian game a berry was picked for each kiss until none were left.3,2
The carol "The Holly and the Ivy" can be traced only to printed sheets of the early 1800s. Cecil Sharp published the version we sing in 1911, using a tune he collected in 1909 in Gloucestershire.4
Mistletoe berries are poisonous to people, and holly berries can make you sick. Never eat either one.3,5
A Norse myth
In a Norse myth written down in Iceland in the 1200s, every thing promised not to hurt the god Baldr except mistletoe, and a trickster used it to make the dart that killed him. In that myth mistletoe is only the weapon. It has nothing to do with a kiss.6
Later symbolism
Holly’s prickly leaves and red berries have been linked since medieval times to the crown of thorns and to drops of blood. This is folk symbolism. The Gospels never say which plant the crown was made from.5
Disputed
Some say the Romans decorated with holly for Saturnalia and early Christians copied them. No clear record of holly at Saturnalia has been found, so it stays a claim.2