~!^*my princess diary*^!~

In 18th-century England, if a woman was standing under the mistletoe, she could not refuse to be kissed. For her, that kiss brought luck for her romantic future. If the woman remained unkissed after standing under that mistletoe, she would not marry the following year. That was the legend anyway.

 
I’ve never been kissed beneath the mistletoe. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever stood beneath mistletoe. But if you told a single woman that standing under the mistletoe unkissed would mean she wouldn’t marry for a year, I imagine she wouldn’t be the slightest bit bothered. Not in this day and age. In fact she might just hope no one came to kiss her at all.
So say you’re standing under mistletoe and some strange man walks over and kisses you. Does that mean you’ll marry in the next year? Will you marry him? Can you escape this curse if he’s someone you don’t like?

Needless to say, the tradition has changed over the years. Nowadays mistletoe is nothing more than a party favor. Something one hangs in her living room to let guests have a little fun. If you were trying to lure a man into kissing you, that little sprig of mistletoe might just be the thing to break the ice.

 
A couple of years ago, I’d be fun and buy some mistletoe. They were selling it in Wal-Mart, along with wrapping paper and bows, so why not? But then I realized that the man I wanted to kiss wasn’t coming to my place. So the night I went to see him I put that mistletoe in a baggy and stuffed it in my purse.

Anyone who’s ever dealt with mistletoe knows exactly what that sprig looked like when I withdrew it a few hours later. It was crushed into dozens of tiny pieces. I showed him, he laughed, and later he kissed me. But he didn’t kiss me under the mistletoe. Still…I had broken the ice with my pathetic attempt to let him know I wanted a kiss.

Have you ever used mistletoe to break the ice?