When I was growing up, we had this piece of plastic mistletoe that my mother would get out every year and hang up in a doorway. The ladies always got a kiss from someone special at the annual Christmas party. It took us kids acquiring our own girl- and boyfriends to figure out what all that was about. Mistletoe’s association with love probably came from the legend of the Viking god Balder, who dreamed he was going to die. His mother, Frigga, the Norse goddess of love and beauty, went to each of the earth’s elements – fire, water, air, plants and animals – and asked them not to harm Balder. However, one of Balder’s enemies found a loophole in Frigga’s request and tricked Balder’s blind brother into killing him with an arrow made of mistletoe.
