Deck the Halls - Why We Decorate Our Homes with Holly at Christmas

Adorning our home with their bright red berries and prickly green leaves during the Yuletide season has become as automatic as egg nog at the festive table and a star or angel on the peak of the pine trees decorating our living room corners, but where did this tradition begin? Why do we use Holly as a Christmas decoration?

Holly is the common name of a plant known by the latin name IIlex aquifolium that has been used as a herbal medicine for centuries. Growing in southern and central Europe, Holly is also known by the names Hulver bush, Holm Chase and Christs Thorn. Traditionally, Holly was used as a diaphoretic or febrifuge - which are medicines used to treat fevers by encouraging the body to regulate its temperature. Holly is used especially for fevers which start and stop suddenly (Doctors will often call these fevers 'intermittent' fevers). Holly was often given to encourage an infection to heal where mucous has built up, as well as in cases of smallpox and pleurisy. Mucous is often referred to as catarrh in many texts. Often, Holly is prepared and taken as an infusion or alternately as a decoction. These methods use boiling water to heat dried plant extracts as a tea, or to boil the extracts over a flame on a stove, as is the case in a decoction. Both methods work to encourage the active ingredient in this plant, Illicin, to leach into the water. This remedy, like all dried plant extracts used in the treatment of fevers, should always be consumed when it is hot. Heat helps the extracts to do their work, controlling a fever.

Along with fevers, Holly has been traditionally used to treat rheumatism, or what today is known as arthritis. Many herbalists throughout the course of history used Holly for this reason. It was also touted by any to heal the joints in the body, including especially those that have been broken, and also help those suffering from pain and discomfort. This plant is bitter to taste, and was also traditionally used as an astringent, to stop bleeding.