I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus

Parasites get a bad press. Sometimes deservedly: if you want to ruin your Christmas, look up Guinea Worm - actually, don't, they're disgusting and horribly painful for an extended period, that's all you need to know - beside them, tapeworm, lice and scabies look quite cuddly. If you have read anything I have written here, you have probably heard more about beekeepers' enemy number one, the Varroa mite, than you ever needed to. Honeybees also get a tiny parasitic mite in their trachaea (breathing tubes) which is always cited as being responsible for the death of almost all British honeybee colonies in the first decade of the 20th century. The native 'British black bee' was all but eradicated and hives were re-stocked with imports of other, more resistant, sub-species from continental Europe 

Mistletoe is an exception in being cherished and celebrated. It is a 'hemi-parasite', getting some of its nutrition from its host tree and generating some itself by photosynthesis. The Wildlife Trusts are surprisingly emphatic about its importance as a winter food source for birds, especially mistle (!) thrush and blackcaps, and of course their importance in its propagation, as sticky seeds stay on their beaks and get wiped off on other branches

But what about the kissing? Nobody seems very sure where that came from, but mistletoe is wrapped up in lots of myths and legends from multiple cultures. Everyone mentions Baldur, son of Odin, killed by a mistletoe arrow (how did they ever find a bit of mistletoe wood straight enough?), in a myth a bit like Achilles heel. Everyone mentions the Celts and Druids, and the evergreen leaves as a natural symbol of life enduring the winter darkness. In Greek mythology, Aeneas and others use mistletoe as a passport between the realms of the living and the dead

It's easy to see why mistletoe attracts these ancient stories - the ghostly white berries in the dead of winter - each one a miniature crystal ball; the evergreen leaves; its habit of appearing, unexplained, 'out of nowhere' in the branches of a mature tree; its slightly stiff, waxy feel, reminiscent of a cadaver. I can never quite embrace it as cheerfully as holly or spruce trees - perhaps it's the kisses from all those aunts

I was just glad of the opportunity for a picture with blue sky in it