Merry Christmas to all friends, clients and casual visitors to kenrinkel.blogspot.com. This is my christmas card that I am sending to clients, friends and family this year. it features Santa Claus as a happy man revelling in his time spent underneath the mistletoe. Internet surfers around the world may be familiar with Christmas and Santa Claus but maybe not so much mistletoe.
Mistletoe is commonly used as a Christmas decoration, and according to custom, the mistletoe must not touch the ground between its cutting and its removal as the last of Christmas greens at the winter equinox; it may remain hanging through the year, often to preserve the house from lightning or fire, until it was replaced the following Christmas Eve. In cultures across pre-Christian Europe, mistletoe was seen as a representation of divine male essence. Whoohoo!
It was described in 1820 by American author Washington Irving in his "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon": "The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas, 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."
I think these days it would be prudent to ask first.
Joyeux Noël
Ken Rinkel
