Build-Your-Own Mistletoe

Day 55: When I was a kid, you used to be able to buy fresh mistletoe in the dime stores, at grocery checkouts, and other common venues. Yes, it had berries on it, but parents warned their kids that they were poisonous (and we listened!), and pet owners either hung the sprigs where their furry friends couldn't reach or pruned the berries off. If there were mistletoe-related fatalities, they were few and far between, but some official body somewhere decided that mistletoe represented an intolerable safety hazard, and it was removed from sale unless already divested of its fruit. One step led to another, and eventually, it became almost impossible to find fresh mistletoe. Now I'm not saying that I was ever kissed beneath a spray of this parasitic plant, no. In fact, I don't recall that ever happening. Still, mistletoe was as much a part of Christmas as ribbon candy and the manger scene. To the best of my knowledge, the only species of mistletoe native to Washington is a micro-mini version occurring on evergreen trees. Oregon's oaks grow a full-sized version, but driving to Oregon to hunt down an obliging oak seemed a rather excessive response to the problem. Instead, I built my own out of Fimo (a bake-in-the-oven polymer clay similar to Sculpey), and I think it looks a lot better than the weird artificials sold in craft stores these days. Does it work? Ask Tippy!