Boughs of Holly

Ever wonder why "boughs of holly" are part of the Christmas tradition and what the significance is? Afterall, very few traditions come into existence apart from a symbolic meaning!

In medieval times, people would make a double hoop of evergreens twined around a pliable wood such as willow, creating a sphere. Any green-leafed twigs would suffice for the hoop, including holly, bay, rosemary, box or yew. In the center they would place a symbol of the Holy Family, or maybe a Christ Child set upon a bed of moss. In later customs, the bough became decorated with ribbons, gilded nuts, fruits and other adornments.

Properly called a "Holy Bough," this decoration was suspended from a beam just inside the entrance to a house. The idea was to embrace, beneath this bough, any visitor who came to the house over the Christmas Season...a symbolic gesture, akin to the "kiss of peace", which indicated that any bad feeling or enmity between the parties had been forgotten. It's easy to recognize here the precursor to the custom more familiar to us...the hanging of the mistletoe.

This is a tradition worth keeping alive, don't you think? Here's the poem that prompted me to investigate the origin and meaning of the holly boughs:

Under the Holly-Bough

by: Charles Mackay

Ye who have scorned each other,

Or injured friend or brother,

In this fast-fading year;

Ye who, by word or deed,

Have made a kind heart bleed,

Come gather here!

Let sinned against and sinning

Forget their strife's beginning

And join in friendship now.

Be links no longer broken,

Be sweet forgiveness spoken

Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have loved each other,

Sister and friend and brother,

In this fast-fading year;

Mother and sire and child,

Young man and maiden mild,

Come gather here;

And let your heart grow fonder,

As memory shall ponder

Each past unbroken vow;

Old loves and younger wooing

Are sweet in the renewing

Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have nourished sadness,

Estranged from hope and gladness

In this fast-fading year;

Ye with o'erburdened mind,

Made aliens from your kind,

Come gather here.

Let not the useless sorrow

Pursue you night and morrow,

If e'er you hoped, hope now.

Take heart - uncloud your faces,

And join in our embraces

Under the Holly-Bough.