Are the colors red and green associated with Christmas solely due to holly leaves and berries? And what is the origin of kissing under the mistletoe?
Holly’s red fruit and evergreen foliage is at least one reason for that color combination, as the plant has had ceremonial connections dating back to Roman Saturnalia. This carried over into Christianity, where holly was the locally available plant in Europe that called to mind the Crown of Thorns. The actual plant from which the crown was made was not Ilex aquifolium, however, but more likely Sarcopoterium spinosum (a common shrub in Israel, but not widespread in Europe).
Advertising also played a role in popularizing the red-green combination, as this story from National Public Radio mentions:
“Victorian Christmas cards used a lot of different palettes (red and green, red and blue, blue and green, blue and white) and they often put Santa in blue, green or red robes. All that changed in 1931. ‘Coca-Cola hired an artist to create a Santa Claus,’ Eckstut says. ‘They had done this before, but this particular artist created a Santa Claus that we associate with the Santa Claus today in many ways: He was fat and jolly — whereas before he was often thin and elf-like — and he had red robes.'”
Roy Vickery’s Garlands, Conkers and Mother-Die: British and Irish Plant-Lore (Continuum, 2010) mentions holly, mistletoe, and conifers used as decoration:
“It is often stated that Christmas evergreens are a survival from pre-Christian times, but it seems more probable that they were brought in simply to provide extra colour. In earlier times, it seems as if any evergreen plant was brought in at Christmastide, but since the end of the nineteenth century only holly, mistletoe, and various conifers have been regularly used. In theory, if not in practice, Christmas greenery should not be brought in before Christmas Eve, and should be taken down before Twelfth Night (January 6), or, more rarely, New Year’s Day.”
About mistletoe (obligate hemiparasitic plants, either Viscum album in Europe, or Phoradendron leucarpum in North America), Vickery says:
“Following Pliny the Elder’s report of Druids collecting mistletoe, it has been regarded as a pagan plant [Druids associated it with the sacred oak tree], and as such was banned from churches. One of the attractions of hanging up mistletoe indoors is the custom of kissing beneath it, a custom which is said to be unique to, or have originated in, the British Isles.”
That tradition may have developed because of mistletoe’s associations with fertility and death. According to The Green Mantle by Michael Jordan (Cassell, 2001), “the tradition was begun in the 18th century in England when a ball of mistletoe was hung up and decorated with ribbons and ornaments. We are , in fact, performing a small rite, in the part of the year when nature appears dead, guarding ourselves against the powers of the netherworld and strengthening our ability to procreate as winter turns to spring.”
Traditions wax and wane, and apparently the early 1970s were a low point for mistletoe, as this item in The Guardian, December 20, 1972 states:
“Covent Garden traders reported that this year’s sales of mistletoe are the worst for years. One reader said, ‘It’s a different sort of age. When they strip off naked in Leicester Square you can see why. They don’t need mistletoe today.'”