![]() They used to cut a sprig of it from the previous year's holiday greens, then hang it in the house in some sort of voodoo attempt to ward off lightning and evil spirits. But, it was the English who finally made mistletoe part of the holiday tradition. History does not indicate if this included sweaty, Norse man-kissing so we're forced to assume it did.īoth the Celts and the Druids used the plant as in ceremonial rituals, and as antidotes to poison, which was unfortunate, since mistletoe is, in fact, poisonous. There was also a Norse tradition that if two warriors should meet under some mistletoe in the forest (it's a parasite that grows on tree branches) that they would lay down their arms and declare peace for the day. So how did people ever make the connection between the shit stick plant and romance? It goes back to the pagan belief that the white, sticky goo from the berries was the semen of the gods. As in, "let's go kiss under the shit stick, baby." The word "mistletoe" may be derived from the old German "mist," for dung, and "tang," for branch. Nevertheless, people who have enough sickening Christmas spirit to purchase the plant, then find a nail, then grab a chair, then remember they forgot to get the hammer, go retrieve the hammer from the freakin' garage, and then hang the mistletoe, might be less likely to do so if they knew the origins of the plant. Everybody knows about it, but does anybody actually do it? We only see it in sitcoms and the occasional Hall and Oates Christmas video, but we're 99 percent sure no one actually uses it in the 21st century. ![]() And, maybe Santa will sport a cheap cardboard crown and a creepy frozen grin.įirst of all, we'd love to know who actually puts up mistletoe in the first place. Who knows, maybe 300 years from now Santa's sleigh will be towed by Energizer Bunnies, long after society has forgotten what an "Energizer" is. That's right Europe brought their real-life saints, Norse gods and rich cultural traditions to the table, and America slapped on a promotion from a department store. It became a huge hit and the Rudolph marketing empire was born, along with a permanent addition to the Santa legend. After that, May's brother-in-law wrote up the song that you've no doubt heard every Christmas since you were born. A few years later the company actually let May have the rights to Rudolph, which was either an act of amazing corporate generosity or else they just assumed the Rudolph fad was over. May wrote it up, and created what turned out to be a marketing bonanza. It's not like toddlers are great at detecting quality in these things. Prior to inventing Rudolph, they used to just buy the books and hand them out each Christmas, but in 1939 they figured it'd be cheaper to have one of their guys draw one up in his spare time. This signature character in Christmas folklore, with his own song and movies and a mountain of yearly merchandise, was slapped together by the Montgomery Ward marketing team for a coloring book they were giving out. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, however, is. Not everything in the Western World is based on some crass marketing campaign. ![]() Some of you are disappointed that we explained Santa without mentioning that the modern image of him was invented for a Coca-Cola ad, as the Internet has probably told you. Not that there's anything wrong with frolicking little people with a propensity for wearing elf garb, of course. The little person might just end up with a bullet in the head. Perhaps the image of a dwarf-sized intruder seemed less threatening than a Chris Farley-sized version, but we're pretty sure we'd be more likely to piss our pants if an overly jolly costumed dwarf magically appeared and started hopping around our living room floor. Writers at the time were still calling Santa an "elf," including Clement Clark Moore in his famous poem The Night Before Christmas.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |