More than Mistletoe

Christmastime has always been a time for romance. Throughout the ages, Christmas brings out the best in everyone - especially those with secrets about love.

In the beginning of the Yule-time traditions, mistletoe was special because it was a rarity. The mystical plant was green, with red berries, and it was rare for anything to flourish in winter. When other trees are bare and the October wind and the weather witch of November scatter the remains of summer, mistletoe is always waiting high overhead in the northern forests of almost anywhere. This is especially true in the Cumberland Mountains of East Tennessee where the age-old traditions of grandparents can still invoke memories that are hard to forget.

Whenever Easter brought the spring flowers granny was ready. Delivering flowers was an excuse to go visiting. Granny was always busy with every change of the seasons, and Easter was the time to check up on the mountain gossip and discover who might be expecting a new baby in the fall.

For the young and the simple, granny was always ready to explain; More babies are born in September than any other month. Summer is high time for weddings because of what might or might not have happened during the most romantic month, which was December, and December, was romantic because of Christmastime and Christmas traditions. 

After the garden and the apple harvests were over, and Granny had canned about a thousand gallons of everything from apple cider, apple butter, and blackberry jam, she was ready to fly her broomstick straight over Halloween and land in the middle of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

When granny became older, she did not become feeble, but she was always pretending to need help with her various projects even though she could actually do everything by herself. Acting feeble and poorly was just one way granny got what she wanted. Another source of recruiting help was food. The best chicken dinner ever did not come from a grocery store but from the wary roosters and hens granny chased down in the apple orchard. 

One year, when granny decided there were not enough babies on the way and not enough romance in the snowy December air, she was ready to do something about it.

The Cumberland Mountain Christmas Carnival was a tradition cooked up by other grannies during another time when the mountain grannies of yesteryear decided what was best. Every year all the youngsters would gather at the cold weather event for dancing, food, drink, and some of the best live music on the east side of Nashville. This was where all the grannies would watch like hawks for whatever happened under the many boughs of mistletoe that were waiting like bear traps hanging above the dancers.

To get the mistletoe however, and bait the hanging traps of romance, granny wanted help. The particular episode in which granny became famous was when she called in a shooting crew to help to gather the Christmas Carnival mistletoe. Because granny was very clever, she called three of the best-looking boys on the mountain. The boys were all single and all without girlfriends. When granny’s recruits showed up with their shotguns, they found the mountain matriarch waiting on the porch in her Christmas sweater, jeans and snake boots. With a flirting wink, she promised each of her helpers a blackberry pie for coming to help with the plan. 

As the boys followed granny out to the woods, she explained that the Christmas Carnival this year was going to be bigger and better than ever. She also promised that all of the best-looking girls would be there and that was why more mistletoe than ever would be required. After all, granny explained to the three boys with shotguns that were following, pretty girls would not kiss a boy without a reason, as it was not proper to offer a kiss without a good excuse. Granny chuckled when she offered the idea that gathering mistletoe was like gathering kindling for a fire. It was better to have more than less if you wanted to get something started.

Granny spotted the first boughs of mistletoe hanging high above the forest floor on the branches of a hickory tree. The clumps were huge and granny pointed to the best place to shoot to bring one down. The boys quickly sighted and fired into the trees. Before the boughs came crashing into the nearby bushes granny was on the move again in search for the next branches hanging with either mistletoe or sprigs of holly.

The next victim to fall under fire was an old oak that was looking more dead than alive but after granny pointed and the three boys sighted and shot up into the branches, a wild boar about the size of a small freight train came charging out of the bushes. All three of the boys panicked and dropped their shotguns. The wild boar tore past granny like a rampaging werewolf during a full moon. The beast was obviously determined to get revenge for disturbing his bushes and with huge tusks and teeth flaring, granny was suddenly alone as her three helpers disappeared down the mountainside.

On the night of the Christmas Carnival, granny was waiting by the bandstand and beneath the hanging boughs of mistletoe with some of the prettiest girls on the mountain. When the three boys that were granny’s good-looking helpers sheepishly walked in and began their bashful approach to the dance floor and the girls, the wizened matriarch of the mountain turned her back on the boys and whispered to the young ladies who were waiting. “Girls, don’t kiss these boys.” Granny insisted. “They’ll turn and run at the first sign of trouble.”

Without a pause, all the girls laughed and answered at once: “Too late!”

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder - The Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.