Mistletoe fans speculate that the reason we kiss under the plant — a hemiparasitic shrub that has been used to treat cancer — can be traced back millenniums: maybe to Celtic druids, maybe to a Norse myth. But according to Judith Flanders, a senior research fellow at the University of Buckingham and the author of “Christmas: A Biography,” the tradition’s origins are actually a mystery.
“We don’t know when it started, we don’t know why it started and we don’t know where it started,” she said.
What we do know? Britains have long decorated for Christmas with evergreens — and, since at least the 17th century, specifically with mistletoe. Ms. Flanders also said that, in parts of working-class Britain in the 18th and early 19th centuries, some people used greenery to make decorative “kissing boughs.”
As for why they were called that? And whether mistletoe was involved? Again, a mystery.
Then, around 1820, we have it: one of the earliest written accounts of kissing under mistletoe. It comes from a series of short stories, many set in England, by the American author Washington Irving. (The same series also introduced readers to Rip Van Winkle, Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.)
“The mistletoe is still hung up in farmhouses and kitchens at Christmas,” Mr. Irving writes, “and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked the privilege ceases.”
By the mid-1800s, images of kissing under mistletoe had begun appearing in British and American periodicals.
“A lot of what became Christmas customs became customs because they appeared in magazines,” Ms. Flanders said. “Particularly the illustrations, which were often copied elsewhere or cut up and used as wall decorations.” (She cited Christmas trees and Santa’s red suit as other examples.)
Mistletoe’s past may be murky, but its future isn’t terribly clear either. Given our growing awareness of the importance of sexual consent, has kissing under the mistletoe run its course?
Not necessarily, said Pamela Zaballa, the chief executive of the NO MORE Foundation, a nonprofit working to end domestic and sexual violence. “It’s a tradition that just needs to be updated with some rules and boundaries,” she wrote in an email.
That includes avoiding hanging mistletoe in work settings. It also means asking someone for consent before kissing them — privately, to avoid peer pressure or embarrassment. “If they seem hesitant at all, or say something like ‘I don’t know,’ consider that to be a ‘no’ and respect their wishes,” Ms. Zaballa added.
But if you get an enthusiastic ‘yes’? Happy smooching!
