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The Solution for 2020
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2020/12 - December
2020’s been an omnishambles year. We’re all hoping the holidays will lift America’s spirit (and consciousness). I’m doing my part. I made a mistletoe ball so huge, it will dwarf your neighbor’s two-story-blow-up-zombie-Rudolf.
Art by Norma Jean Zahner
2020’s been an omnishambles year. We’re all hoping the holidays will lift America’s spirit (and consciousness).
I’m doing my part.
I made a mistletoe ball so huge, it will dwarf your neighbor’s two-story-blow-up-zombie-Rudolf.
SpaceX will launch my Missile-toe early December. It will orbit Earth through New Year’s. Everyone on the planet will be under my gigantic globe of greenery. Humankind will be required to kiss friends and strangers with conviction. Conservatives shall kiss Progressives. Dogs kiss cats. Karens kiss people of color. Lambs kiss lions (who, thus, will consider veganism).
If my plan works, we’ll reverse the madness of 2020 and the world shall be set right. Like Snow White, the kiss shall waken us.
Can mistletoe’s magic make such a miracle? Let’s look at its kiss-tory.
Alas, mistletoe’s a parasitic plant. Its sustenance is the juice of its host, yet it creates chlorophyll like any ordinary botanical. Birds munch on its berries. When their seed-laden droppings land on a suitable branch, mistletoe will take root. The tree is then stuck with a plant-sucker ‘til death do them part… or ‘til Peter, parasite picker, plucks a peck of parasites.
There are several mistletoe origin myths. The Druids revered mistletoe, the only plant that bloomed in harsh winter. That inspired the Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe. Romans found that barbaric, and we all know what happens when you offend a Caesar.
The Norse had their own mistletoe madness. The god Baldur shot and killed the son of the goddess, Figg. Baldur’s arrow was made of mistletoe. Figg vowed that forevermore, anyone passing under mistletoe would be kissed, as long as the plant was never again used as a weapon.
Are you now envisioning a wobbly, macramed mistletoe arrow that flops more than flies?
Those Norsemen.
If you drink enough mead, anything’s possible, which could explain my mistletoe-ball satellite and total disregard for danger-kisses in a COVID plague.
By the 1700s England created its own version of mistletoe kissing. It began with the lower class at Christmas and quickly spread to any class fond of sucking face.
So this December, stand under the seedy, bird-dropping, parasitic, son-killing, low-class mistletoe and indulge in a kiss.
Wait a minute. This story was supposed to spread good cheer.
Forget murderous mistletoe. Next year, let’s talk about a happier holiday tradition…the bricks that built the very foundation of our nation … the fruitcakes.