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Why we kiss
under mistletoe Kissing under the mistletoe is thought to
have evolved from the Roman winter solstice festival of
Saturnalia and marriage rites. The plant was said to bestow
the gift of fertility. In Scandinavia mistletoe was regarded
as a plant of peace that would help enemies resolve their
conflict or warring spouses kiss and settle their differences.
Tradition also has it that mistletoe should be burned on the
twelfth night in case all the boys and girls who have kissed
under it never marry. Those who want to ensure they get the
etiquette correct should remember that men are meant to pluck
berries when they kiss a woman under mistletoe and once the
last one is gone the frolics should stop.
Winter Solstice
Means That Beyond Bare Branches Lies a World Waiting to Bloom
The darkest day is the birthday of hope: For many thousands of
years, that is what the winter solstice has meant to people
all over the world. It is the shortest day of the year, when
night has its greatest dominion. But it also is the day that
light begins to grow, it has provided powerful metaphors of
survival and rebirth to help us face the apparent death of the
natural world and look on to the season of new growth to come.
Unlike ancient
pagans, we have science to tell us that the solstice _ Dec. 22
in the Northern Hemisphere _ is simply the day when the
Earth's axis tips us farthest from the sun, so the sun appears
lowest and weakest in the sky and has the shortest arc. As the
Earth tips back, the days will inevitably grow longer.
Knowing is one thing. Real comfort comes when we deck our
houses with evergreens, light fires and candles, feast with
our families to banish cold and dark, sing songs, worship
together and tell sacred stories of hope and rebirth.
Pagan Roots Many of the customs we associate with
Christmas have their roots in pagan winter solstice
celebrations from northern Europe, where the longest darkness
and deepest cold brought the greatest fear.
pre-Christian
Scandinavia a giant oak log was burned to symbolize
strength and endurance, as the household gathered around the
fire in the face of darkness. That image of the fire on the
hearth still is central to our idea of Christmas.
Traditionally the log that celebrated Yule _ a name probably
derived from an old word for wheel, as the wheel of the year
turned _ was big enough to light 12 days of feasting. A
fragment would be saved to light next year's log, symbolizing
continuity and rebirth.
In Celtic myth, the winter solstice was the time that
the Oak King _ who had grown weaker through the fall, just as
his sacred trees lost their leaves _ revived to do battle with
his evergreen twin, the Holly King. Holly has long been
associated with European midwinter celebrations, because it
remains green and holds it berries at a time when so much of
the forest is gray or brown and seems dead. Later, as a new
metaphor arose for light and rebirth, the holly's berries,
like those of mistletoe, came to be associated with the blood
of Christ.
Northern European Evergreens, with their apparent
ability to defy winter's death, long have been sacred . At the
solstice, evergreens were decorated with offerings to beckon
the return of the growing year. After the Middle Ages, the
custom began to move indoors, and it entered American
tradition after the German-born Prince Albert introduced the
Christmas tree to England in 1841.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I think the Irish woman was freed from slavery by bingo. They can go out now,
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Thought of the Day
Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things
that happen to you on a piece of marble. Arabic parable
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