Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

Why do we kiss under mistletoe?

issue 11 December 2021

Give us a snog. Pucker up at the Christmas party. Kiss me quick at the Nativity play. Will you be snogging this season? Thérèse Coffey, Secretary of State for Work, Pensions and Office Passion, has spoken. ‘I don’t think there should be much snogging under the mistletoe.’ she told Robert Peston on ITV. Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health, weighed in: ‘I’ll certainly be kissing my wife under the mistletoe — it’s a Javid family tradition.’

Not just a Javid tradition. Mistletoe is a pale green shrub which grows on the branches of broad-leaved trees. It is hemiparasitic, which means that it draws water and mineral nutrients, but not synthesised foods, from its host. Shakespeare thought it more dismal than cheerful. Tamora in Titus Andronicus laments having been enticed to a ‘barren, detested vale… Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe’.

Mistletoe has long been thought to have magical and medicinal properties, especially when found on an oak.

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