News You Can Bruise for 2007 December 11

Permalink [Comments] (6) Tue Dec 11 2007 14:48:

Sumana asked me if I'd ever kissed anyone underneath the mistletoe. I said I'd never even seen mistletoe. On reflection I have seen wild mistletoe, growing on trees in the Tehachapi Mountains when I was a kid. That's why it never seemed odd to me that First Edition druids were always going out and cutting mistletoe for spell components or whatever. But I've never seen it in someone's house around Christmas time, I guess because my family's not much for random kissing.

Where would you even get mistletoe? You can get it online now, but was there a span of about fifty years where people living in cities couldn't get it? Maybe it's a seasonal item in flower shops.

Does anyone of my generational cohort or the one before it 'do' mistletoe? It seems like something that died when office Christmas parties were toned down.

Comments:

Posted by Karen in Wichita at Tue Dec 11 2007 16:03

My mother has a friend (in her sixties) who remembers going out to get mistletoe with a shotgun, a tradition I was unaware of in my damyankee childhood.

We had a plastic mistletoe ball (with little kissing elves in it, in case you didn't recognize it as mistletoe I suppose) when I was growing up. It hung on the chandelier in the entry hall, but I don't think there was much random kissing involved.

Posted by Eric Fischer at Tue Dec 11 2007 16:39

We got some (sold in little baggies) from the Christmas tree lot at Grand Ave and Macarthur Blvd in Oakland. I don't think I had ever seen real mistletoe before, though. We had plastic fake mistletoe when I was a kid.

Posted by Rachel at Tue Dec 11 2007 16:49

mom totally put mistletoe up one year... i think.

Posted by Susie at Tue Dec 11 2007 18:29

You can buy a little package of dried mistletoe with fake berries and places like Michael's. Mom did have some at least once. I read in her journal about trying to get some in the mountains but it was all up too high. Think I remember that.

Posted by mikepop at Tue Dec 11 2007 18:46

We had some plastic mistletoe in the office of one of my earlier jobs. Some toning down would probably have been a good idea :)

Posted by jaacob at Tue Dec 11 2007 23:33

mistletoe is standard decoration. my grandmother used to hang it in this one doorway that i would always try and avoid going through. origin of mistletoe.

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