Happy National Mistletoe Day! Today, 1st December, is the date we set for Mistletoe Day when it was established by the Tenbury Wells Mistletoe Festival back in 2003 (or was it 2004?). Not that you'd know - as most of the folk who do celebrate it do so on the first Saturday in December - which will be the 5th this year. For mistletoe events on the 5th click here.
But back to today - we have two msitletoe activities lined up in Tenbury - and yes I was up at the crack of dawn, again, to witness them. First up a small druid gathering (that's a gathering of a few druids, not a gathering of very little druids). This takes place at today's second mistletoe event - one of the Tenbury mistletoe auctions, though the druids are there well before the auctions begin, to help the auctions and mistletoe along witha druid blessing.
This Mistletoe Foundation event is attended by a handful of local druids, led by Suzanne Thomas (who is also organising some of Saturday's events, including the evening do). A brief ceremony and then a scattering of wine onto the mistletoe, row by row. This is our first frosty morning of this winter - and the mistletoe is glistening with ice, and looking very 'Christmassy'. 'Christmas', is in this context, a newcomer of course - celebrating mistletoe in midwinter goes back well before Christianity - but saying that frosted mistletoe is looking 'winter solsticey' doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
Didn't stay for the auctions proper - too much to do elsewhere but I hear that mistletoe prices were relatively low again - as expected because of the abundance of high quality (well-berried) mistletoe this year.
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