In the Holiday Spirit, Already?

You’ve probably seen it—decorations popping up in shopping centers, festive music playing inside, advertisements of everything you and your loved ones ever wanted online and on television. The holiday season comes sooner and sooner each year, it seems. But while every family has its own traditions, there’s a few that rarely, if ever, were celebrated in early nineteenth century England.

 

One of those is the poinsettia. The gorgeous red flowers are popular gifts and decorations where I live, with owners waiting eagerly for that first bloom to appear. There are even white and pink versions. But the what we now call the poinsettia (after Joel Robert Poinsett, first US ambassador to Mexico) originated in south of the border and did not reach America until 1825. I have not found evidence of its arrival in England until after that date.

Mistletoe is, sadly, almost as rare. It only grows in certain parts of England. So, unless you lived in in the south of England or west in the midlands, you might not have mistletoe either. Holly and ivy were more likely Christmas decorations.

Which is why I asked for them on the cover of my latest re-release, An Uncommon Christmas, which is currently available for preorder and launches next week. Previously published as “A Place by the Fire” in Mistletoe Kittens, and as a standalone novella The Mistletoe Kitten, the book has connections to both the Uncommon Courtships series and the Lady Emily Capers. It explains how the older brother of Jareth Darby (The Unwilling Miss Watkin) and the best friend of Hannah Alexander (Secrets and Sensibilities) came to fall in love, for the second time.

Eleanor Pritchett has convinced herself that love is not for her. She’d dared to love once, a man superior to her in birth, education, and position. His family warned her away. But when his orphaned niece begs her to carry a kitten to him for Christmas, Norrie cannot refuse.

Justinian, Earl of Darby, always wondered what happened to his first love, whom his father claimed was a fortune hunter. Now she returns, bearing a kitten. Can that tiny creature, and the wonder of Christmas, prove that true love never fades, and hearts once closed can be opened anew?

I hope it puts you in the holiday spirit, whenever you read it.

Smashwords  

Amazon 

Barnes and Noble 

Kobo  

iBooks 

Don't Stand Under the Kissing Bough with Anyone Else But Me

Each year, my husband eagerly awaits the first sign of the Christmas, which at my house means the decorations going up.  He’s happy to help pull down the boxes holding all the trimmings and set up the tree in front of the window.  But what he really likes is the spray of mistletoe I hang in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room.  You see, my husband loves to catch me under the bough and steal a kiss.

Mistletoe wasn’t the only thing that hinted of stolen kisses in the early nineteenth century.  The more likely culprit would have been a kissing bough.  The kissing bough was a structure made from evergreens such as laurel or pine.  It was decorated with apples, paper flowers, ribbons, and dolls representing Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus.  Holly and ivy might be included in parts of England where those plants were prevalent. 

 

Sometimes the kissing bough looked like a wreath suspended flat; more often period pictures show a rounded structure like a globe.  Some hung the bough from a chandelier or high ceiling.  Others tell of boughs resting alongside a door or perhaps over it. 

However the bough was constructed and displayed, the purpose was the same:  a gentleman catching a lady underneath or next to it was allowed to request a kiss. In some households, a berry had to be plucked from the bough with each kiss forfeited.  Once the berries were gone, no more kisses could be required. As you can imagine, the young ladies and gentlemen made good use of the kissing boughs near them.

You can learn how to make your own kissing bough this Christmas from this crafters website. 

 

I hope the loved ones in your life make good use of your kissing bough or any mistletoe you have handy!