Bringing Home the Holly
With holly and ivy,
So green and so gay,
We deck up our houses
As fresh as the day.
Robin’s Almanac
The first day of the holidays was sunny and bright. Frost had come in the night, and the grass outside was white and crisp—good to walk on. The children looked out of the window, and longed to be out in the sun, cutting the gay holly.
“It’s lovely that Daddy’s got the day off today,” said Susan. “He’s such fun to be with and he’s not like some fathers I know. He really talks to us!”
After breakfast they all put on hats and coats, and went out into the garden. Daddy, Benny and Susan had sharp knives for cutting holly sprays. Peter and Ann were to set the cut sprays neatly together on the grass, ready for taking indoors. Then they would all help in putting them up.
“Now, you two take those thick tall bushes,” said Daddy to Benny and Susan. “I’ll have to get the ladder to go up this tree. I’ll cut some beautiful sprays from it. Aren’t the berries lovely and thick this year?”
“Yes—and what a lovely scarlet!” said Susan. “Daddy, why do you put up holly at Christmas-time? Does holly mean holy tree?”
“Yes,” said Daddy. “It’s been used for so many, many years as a decoration in our churches, you see. There are quite a number of legends about it. I’ll tell you some when we have finished cutting, and are having a bit of rest and a cup of cocoa at eleven o’clock. But I can’t talk and cut holly at the same time.”
Daddy fetched the ladder and went up the tree. Soon big sprays of the prickly branches were falling to the ground, and Ann and Peter were kept very busy picking them up.
“They are spiny!” said Ann, in dismay. “Look, this leaf has made my finger bleed, Peter.”
Peter looked. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I say, Ann, that little drop of blood on your finger is just the colour of the holly berry, look!”
So it was, as brilliant a scarlet as the gleaming berries. Ann wiped away the blood, and went to fetch her gloves. Then she wouldn’t feel the pricks so much.
Susan and Benny worked hard at their bushes. Daddy had shown them how to cut out sprays from the very thickest part, so that they would not spoil the shape of the trees.
Ann and Peter ran in and out of the house with the berried sprays. At eleven o’clock Mother came out with a tray. On it was an enormous jug of cocoa, and a plate of biscuits.
“Oooh, lovely!” said Ann. “Where shall we have it?”
“In the summer-house,” said Susan. So the tray was taken there, for it was a nice day. Susan poured out the cocoa. Daddy climbed down his ladder, and came to join them. He had a bright spray of holly stuck into his coat.
“That’s for the Christmas pudding,” he said. “It’s such a thickly berried little spray.”
“I like holly,” said Benny. “Its leaves are so smooth and shiny, and the berries are so brilliant. Daddy, the birds don’t go for holly berries nearly as quickly as they go for other berries, do they?”
“No, they don’t,” said Daddy. “They are not so nice—and if you ate them, they would make you terribly sick.”
“Is the holly berry like a gooseberry?” said Ann, squeezing one.
“Open one and see,” said Daddy. “They are not like them at all. They have four tiny ‘stones’ inside, containing the seed.”
“So they have,” said Ann. “Daddy, why are the leaves so spiny?”
“Well, you could think of that for yourself,” said Daddy. “Spines or thorns are nearly always grown by plants to prevent themselves being eaten.”
“That holly tree you have been cutting has smooth-edged leaves right at its top,” said Susan. “There are no spines at all on the top branches, Daddy.”
“Well, there is no fear of a cow or horse having a long enough neck to reach right up to the top!” said Daddy. “So spines often don’t grow on the leaves higher up. Now—what was it you were asking me before, about the holly?”
“You said you would tell us some old tales about the holly,” said Susan. “Daddy, was holly first used as a decoration when Jesus was born?”
“Oh no,” said Daddy. “Holly was used long before that. Years before, the Roman people used to hold a great feast at this time of year, the feast of their god Saturn, and they decked his temples with the holly, as well as with other evergreens.”
“Why did they use evergreens?” asked Ann. “Just because they were green?”
“People of olden times had a strange belief,” said Daddy. “They thought, you see, that there were many gods and goddesses living in the woods and in the hills among the trees and bushes. Well, when the wintry weather came, they thought these gods would be cold. So they brought evergreen boughs into their houses and temples, thinking that the forest gods and goddesses would be able to come with them, and nestle in the greenery to escape the bitter frosts outside.”
“Oh,” said Benny, “what a queer idea. Did the old folk long ago hang up sprays just as we do?”
“They often made them into long festoons,” said Daddy, “and they sometimes used fruit, leaves, flowers and grain to make their festoons. We too use festoons, but ours are made of paper—your paper-chains, for instance.”
“We are doing what people did hundreds and hundreds of years ago then, when we hang up our paper-chains, for our festoons, and put up evergreens,” said Susan. “Do you know anything else about the holly, Daddy?”
“Well, there are curious old tales or legends about it,” said Daddy. “One is that the crown of thorns that Christ was made to wear, was of holly, and that the blood the thorns caused, made the berries scarlet.”
Ann remembered how scarlet her blood had gleamed when she had pricked it with the holly. She was sad when she thought of such a cruel crown for Jesus.
“Another old tale tells about the robin and how he got his red breast,” said Daddy.
“How did he?” asked Peter, looking at a robin who had flown down nearby, hoping for a crumb or two.
“Well, a robin saw Jesus on the cross,” said Daddy, “and he noticed his crown of thorns. The little bird saw how the thorns pricked
