Kiss Me Underneath the Mistletoe

Across songs, films, novels, and myriad tales, many may have heard the tender plea, “Kiss me underneath the mistletoe”. Yet, do you grasp how this verdant emblem intertwines with Christmas and blossoms into an icon of romance? Winter’s annual embrace, beyond the revelry of Christmas, remains a season ripe for countless enamored souls to venture forth. As the Christmas season unfurls, stealing a kiss beneath the mistletoe becomes the zenith of romantic enchantment. Mistletoe’s name etched in ancient records, rituals, and verses echoes through epochs and traces back to the tales of Greece. Legend intertwines it with the mythic tragedy of ‘Baldur’, the sun god’s son, and ‘Frigga’, the goddess of love and union. A gift bestowed upon her resurrected son, transforming mistletoe into an emblem of serenity and love. Whispered tales claimed its white berries sprung from Frigga’s tears when her son fell victim to deceitful demise. Thus, the mistletoe bears ties to love since ancient times. However, the tradition of a kiss beneath it surged into narrative prominence after an American writer’s chronicle in the early 1800s by Washington Irving. He muses that men shall seize the chance to kiss a maiden under the mistletoe while gathering its fruit. When the berries wane, so does the moment. This resurgence of mistletoe-kisses found its way to England through the works of Charles Dickens, nestled within “The Pickwick Papers” (1837) and “A Christmas Carol” (1843), culminating in the most romantically woven short story, “The Mistletoe Bough”. Concluding its final scene with a tender kiss under its boughs. The custom surged in the United States circa 1820 through Washington Irving’s verses in “The Sketchbook”, chronicling English Christmas customs adorned with mistletoe, intertwined with the tale of maidens seeking kisses beneath its boughs. Mistletoe thus evolved into an emblem of love during Christmas, a cherished tradition binding lovers through time’s unwavering march, fostering moments that endure till today.