I'm dreaming of a green Christmas

Swap electric lights for candles, compost the organic Christmas decorations or recycle the old ones. get back to the basics

Swap electric lights for candles, compost the organic Christmas decorations or recycle the old ones. get back to the basics

Now that Christmas has become an almost universal holiday, it seems that the urge to decorate both private and public spaces in all kinds of extravagant ways has pretty much gone global too. It doesn't matter whether you're shovelling snow or picnicking beneath palm trees in the tropics. Come November, there will be people up ladders practising their 'Christmas du00e9cor' skills.

Up will go streamers of tinsel and fairy lights, glowing plastic Santas and all kinds of trees, from pines to palms, real or fake, along with baubles, trumpeting angels and twinkling stars. In China, whole towns are devoted entirely to the manufacture of sparkly seasonal bits and bobs. Fashions may change, but the trend everywhere is towards the bigger and brighter, with ever more stylistic, themed and 'designer' displays.

Of course, nobody likes a 'party pooper' or a Mr Scrooge muttering 'Humbug!', but with worries about global warming and general belt-tightening, perhaps this is the year to consider getting back to the basics of a simpler age.

It all started out modestly enough on a local scale, and well before Christmas appeared on the scene. In the cold north, the sun would do its worrying annual disappearing act, leaving the residents huddled together round the roaring fire in the communal hall under bearskins and reindeer hides.

Trafalgar Square in London lit up for Christmas

To keep their spirits up, the Northmen made a ceremony of dragging the largest log they could find into the big hall, crowned with evergreen foliage as a reminder that spring would come again. They called it the yule log 'yule' meaning 'wheel' to symbolise the ever-turning year. These days, the memory survives mainly in the form of a gorgeously gooey, log-shaped cake covered with chocolate and sprinkled with icing sugar 'snow'.

The custom of bringing mid-winter greenery into the house easily survived the coming of Christianity. The Holly and the Ivy, one of the best known Christmas carols, explains the use of these two 'evergreens' in terms of Christian symbolism rather than the traditional pagan beliefs they replaced, with holly prickles representing the crown of thorns, and so on. But 'decking the halls with boughs of holly' requires determination and thick leather gloves, so the custom survives mostly in the form of a holly sprig, real or fake, stuck on top of the Christmas pudding. However, real holly berries are poisonous, so don't let the kiddies mistake them for sweets.

Ivy is much more amenable to the decorator's art. Its long streamers of glossy, heart-shaped leaves are just begging to be worked into decorative swags festooned with red and gold ribbon and bows. Any thick-leaved creeper will do, and the children can be let loose to add their own flourishes. It's cheap since gardeners are usually pleased to get their wayward evergreens pruned. It looks nicely 'traditional' and can be thrown in the fire or composted after the celebrations.

The ultimate form of ever-greenery is, of course, the Christmas tree. If ever a symbol of seasonal goodwill has taken off, it isu00a0 surely this one. It started quietly enough in Latvia, where there's a plaque in the town square of Riga marking its first official appearance in 1510. Queen Victoria's German husband brought the custom to England, and Charles Dickens also played his part, with his ever-popular A Christmas Carol and a famous short story, The Christmas Tree.

Charmingly, whole countries now send each other a huge tree for Christmas. The one in London's Trafalgar Square is presented each year by the people of Norway in thanks for wartime comradeship. Maybe that custom could catch on too. Even better would be to send lots of sapling trees instead, to countries that badly need them to 're-green' barren lands or the cash to grow them locally.

Amongst all the greenery, the other Christmas colour is undoubtedly red. No great mystery there, since red is the colour of fire and love or maybe Santa hijacked his red gear from the traditional costume of the Lapp people of northern Scandinavia where he gets his reindeer. Or was it from red church robes? After all, he may well have been a saintly bishop in an earlier life.

More red (and green) was added to the du00e9cor from the New World where, in 1829, an American official, Joel Robert Poinsett, first brought back the beautiful Flor de Noche Buena (Holy Night Flower) from Mexico to the United States, and gave his name to it.
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The stunning scarlet form of Poinsettia is now one of the most popular Christmas emblems. Millions of pot Poinsettias, much reduced in size from their wild bushy state, are produced in greenhouses each year. Locally produced plants are more 'green' than imported ones, but better yet is to cut the carbon out completely and go in for homemade fantasy flowers in reusable rich red fabrics.

Extra lighting is also part of the festive season. It is Sweden we have to thank for the association of Christmas with candles. December 13, is the feast of St Lucia, the patroness of light, at the darkest time of year. It goes back to pre-Christian times and was similar to the Hindu festival of Diwali. But we've

Now gone from candles to a positive orgy of electric lights, from the daintiest winking 'fairy' types to enormous street displays, on town halls, in department stores, even cascading off bridges. Lately, coloured lasers beamed at the stars have been added to list.

It's true that candles, bush lamps and night-light lanterns can be a fire hazard, but in the open air round a communal big tree or city square, a Carols by Candlelight get-together is one of the season's treats, and it's far more atmospheric with less garish lighting around. Another way of using a tiny amount of light effectively is to revive the old custom of putting a candle in the window on Christmas Eve to show travellers the way home.

As for mistletoe, that seasonal excuse for getting in touch with your inner pagan by stealing a kiss under a sprig of it at the office party, it has little to do with Christmas. This small, bunchy parasitical plant grows mainly on old oak or apple trees, but mysteriously retains its pale green leaves and squashy white berries in winter when its host's branches are bare. Delve into its murky past, and out will pop tales of druids cutting it with a golden sickle by the full moon, wild fertility rites, and the use of its berries to cure almost anything.

It is possible, though, that its reputation may have less to do with festive naughtiness than we'd like to believe. Tribal disputes were sometimes settled in sacred oak groves, where sworn enemies could be persuaded to offer the 'kiss of peace' under a bunch of mystic mistletoe. Perhaps this aspect of mistletoe-related activity should be revived, and not just at parties, but at the United Nations as well. If all you can get is the plastic variety, at least it can be recycled for next year.