There are many other mistletoe customs. Local customs, such as the English midland custom of keeping mistletoe hanging all year, and ceremonially replacing it each Christmas whilst burning the original, have now been lost, in a homogenisation of the ‘best’ customs. The British kissing tradition is one of these, once largely confined to Britain but now exported and established in all English-speaking countries, even if they do have to make do with ‘incorrect’ local mistletoe species.

Inconvenient customs, such as removing berry after each kiss and thus limiting the fun, are usually forgotten. There is also increasing reliance on plastic substitutes, rather than real plants. And if you notice that the plastic stuff doesn’t look much like mistletoe, that’s because it’s modelled on the American Phoradendron, not the distinctively branched Viscum!

Mistletoe traditions in continental Europe can differ, with use at New Year rather than Christmas. There are also cultural associations with V.album’s shape and imagery – best developed during the Art Nouveau period when many high class French and German products, from cutlery to furniture and vases to lampshades, used mistletoe in their designs. 

There are new ‘customs’ too. In the recent Plantlife campaign to nominate County Flowers there was competition between Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire to have mistletoe as ‘theirs’. Herefordshire won the honour...

And in the US, mistletoe is already the State Flower for Oklahoma