Have you ever kissed under the mistletoe?
How did that tradition come into existence?
Kissing under the mistletoe has been a part of TV shows, movies, and literature. It creates drama and comedy.
The first recorded time someone kissed under the mistletoe was in England just after the Revolutionary War in 1784 in a musical.
Most Americans remember the Mistletoe during The Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens, and it was during that story that Scrooge had an opportunity to kiss someone under the mistletoe. While we can trace the origins back many years, this is when it entered into the culture.
Here is what Why Christmas says about the early history of the Mistletoe:
The original custom was that a berry was picked from the sprig of Mistletoe before the person could be kissed, and when all the berries had gone, there could be no more kissing!
The irony is that the meaning of mistletoe is poop on a stick...sounds disgusting, but when you combine the prefix "Mistel," which means poop, and "toe," which means stick...what can you deduce?
I don't know how kissing under "poop on a stick" became an automatic kiss under the mistletoe, but it did.
I guess there are weirder traditions...but I don't know of any.