by Rob Perez

Mistletoe

Through no fault of my own other than I needed groceries, I found myself in a supermarket being held hostage by Christmas music. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus came on. Do you know where the narrator saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus? On the lips, I presume. I dunno. I got distracted the moment I heard she was kissing him under the mistletoe. And I thought: huh. Mistletoe. Is that still a thing?

I feel like mistletoe is a holdover from 80s office parties — back when sexual harassment was less a violation and more just a part of the job description. I never went to office parties in the 80s, on account of I was still just a wee lad, but boy, I bet there was mistletoe hanging over every doorway in that hypothetical office. Probably even some doorways that weren’t real doorways.

But the more I thought about it, the more it hit me: mistletoe in the workplace wasn’t innovation. It was appropriation. Somewhere along the line, some opportunistic office man looked at this innocent family tradition — Mommy kissing Santa Claus under a sprig of the holiday foliage — and thought, “Oh, that’s sleazy. I gotta bring that to work.” He brought it to the next office party and was immediately promoted to the c-suite.

But where did this, um, well, tradition stem from? Who dreamt this thing up? Because someone, somewhere, at some point, looked at a winter plant and thought: Yes. This is the one. This plant will be for kissing.

Here’s the history:

• Because the plant stayed green through the winter, the Druids thought the mistletoe was sacred — a symbol of peace and fertility.

• The Norse folded it into a myth where the god Baldr is struck down by an arrow tipped with mistletoe. Naturally.

• Frigg, Baldr’s mother and the goddess of love, declared that from then on mistletoe should bring affection instead of tragedy — offering a kiss to anyone who passed beneath it.

• And then the Victorians got hold of all that mythology and did what the Victorians always did: they turned it into a formal activity with rules. For example, every time you kiss someone under the mistletoe, you’re supposed to pluck off one berry. And when the berries are gone, that’s it. No more kissing.

Before dashing on, let’s take a moment and consider the plant itself.

The thing that stands out to me from the lore is that mistletoe is poison! It’s not holly or pine or some other festive evergreen. Mistletoe is, quite literally, toxic. The leaves are poisonous. The berries are poisonous. And not the good kind of poison, like a poinsettia — which is only poisonous to cats. No, mistletoe is the bad kind of poison. The kind that’s poisonous to me.

Also, the plant itself is a parasite. It survives by drilling into a host tree and quietly siphoning off its lifeblood. So this is the plant we chose — out of all the available plants — to get us in the mood for kissing?

It’s bad enough when mistletoe is hung over a doorway. I mean, I can always find another doorway. I can enter a room through a window if needed. But sometimes there’s a creepy uncle working the room with a strong drink in one hand and — in the other — mistletoe. That’s right. Walking-around mistletoe. The good news is most people are strong-willed enough to simply ignore this uncle. The bad news is that he’s still your uncle.

This brings me back to that kid who saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus — under the mistletoe. Obviously, this is a scandal. Mommies should only be kissing Daddies like that. But the mistletoe means they have to kiss. Them’s the rules. Still… did Mommy have to kiss him so forcefully? So lustfully? I mean, if she hadn’t been standing under the mistletoe, wouldn’t a polite thank-you and a couple home-baked cookies have sufficed?