Excerpt chosen by Lin Green

For bibliophiles and yulephiles (made up word adopted by Christmas lovers!) – I’m both! The Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater is a must have.

He says – ‘I have always loved the winter months, with their crisp mornings, candlelight and promise of snow. The Christmas chronicles is the story of my adoration of the cold months, my fondness of the winter landscape with its pale blue skies and bare trees; for autumn and winter baking and the season’s rituals and feasting. At the heart of the book is Christmas, its fables, folklore and, of course it’s food………

A very personal stir up of diary, memoir and cook book……of Christmases past and present…

The Christmas Chronicles

by Nigel Slater

1 DECEMBER

Mistletoe………

‘I need to track down a supply of mistletoe. Along with bundles of holly and ivy, its soft green stems have long decorated this house at this time of year. Mistletoe is heavy with folklore. Viscum album, the variety of the genus that produces the white, translucent berries, is the one we need to deck our halls at Christmas. A parasitic plant that needs a host tree on which to attach itself, it is abundant in Britain but particularly so in the Midlands, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Somerset. I could not think of Christmas without it.

The plant’s olive-green leaves and current-like berries have deep associations with Yuletide. It is considered sacred, magical and medicinal. The Druids would cut balls of mistletoe from their sacred oak trees at the start of the winter solstice, the ceremony taking place on the sixth night following the new moon following the solstice. The tradition of hanging a bunch from a doorway was not originally for kissing under, though it was certainly considered an aphrodisiac. (Early belief was that the berries contained the sperm of the gods.) The hanging bunch’s first function was to protect the home against thunder and lightning.

The genus appears in Celtic rituals such as the ancient Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe, a religious ceremony in which a Druid climbs an oak tree to collect its haul, catching the ball of evergreens in his cloak. (Legend has it that mistletoe should never be allowed to touch the ground.) My long-held romantic vision of my mistletoe being gathered by white-cloaked Druids climbing ancient trees is sadly off the mark, though. Most of the stock available in London arrives in a decidedly unromantic lorry from France.

Balls of mistletoe, most easily spotted in winter when the trees are bare, grow famously on apple trees but also on blackthorn, crab apple, lime and hawthorn. I have always associated its appearance with tall trees and open countryside. It is not a woodland creature. Despite the association with dark days, Viscum Album needs light to thrive.

I think of it as an essential part of our winter landscape, and as a child would excitedly point out the untidy globes of golden-green as we walked through the Worcestershire lanes, in the same way I did poppies in cornfields. The tangles of forked stemmed greenery are spread from tree to tree by birds, particularly the blackcaps, which wipe the sticky, inedible seeds off their beaks on the nearest patch of bark. Particularly prolific in Germany, it is known by over thirty different names, including the magnificent Drudenfua.

According to the Mistletoe Pages, a website celebrating the phenomenon in all its forms, Viscum album, the original variety, is the only one that has the symmetrical leaves and white berries we look for. I have to admit to not being aware of more than one type, so this could explain why so much I see is missing its berries. I must point out that mistletoe is poisonous to both humans and household pets.

The habit of kissing under the mistletoe is curiously English. . We seem to have conveniently forgotten that a berry should be picked each time a kiss is given, and once the berries are no more, then so are the kisses. Because of its pagan origins, it is occasionally banned in some churches.

Tenbury Wells in Worcester has been associated with my favourite Christmas evergreen for centuries and is home to the annual mistletoe festival. The town was part of my childhood. As a family we went there every few weeks, not initially for mistletoe but because of my father’s obsession with clematis, for which the area was also famous. I was happy enough to tag along, though mostly for the coffee and walnut cake in the local café. Each Christmas we would drive off to the mistletoe market, returning with the boot of the car full of string-tied evergreens. Held at the Tenbury Wells livestock market until 2004, the area’s associations with the plant are now upheld by the Tenbury Mistletoe Association, who are campaigning for today to be officially declared Mistletoe Day. I hope they succeed. (There is a mistletoe market held on the last Tuesday of November and the first two Tuesdays of December each year, but check their website for details.)

Despite its toxicity, mistletoe has long been revered, often controversially, for its healing qualities.

It has also long been considered a plant of peace, which may be why this variety is held sacred by the Druids. Legend also has it that fighting armies in the Middle Ages would put down their weapons and call a truce once they spotted the plant growing in the trees; couples who promised to marry under its branches would have a long and happy marriage; for those who weren’t, this was the place to kiss and make up. In more recent, less politically correct times, the habit of kissing under a sprig of mistletoe was reduced to copping a snog in the office. Now, a hanging bunch of Viscum album is returning to a place where lovers tenderly steal a kiss.’

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Jack the Lad

Sent in by Helen Anderson