Christmas Eve is especially the time for decorating houses and churches with evergreens, a custom which seems to have come from heathen times; at least, no one seems to know when it commenced. Polydore Vergil[40] says:--"Trymming of the temples with hangynges, floures, boughes, and garlondes, was taken of the heathen people, whiche decked their idols and houses with such array." That it is an old custom in England to deck houses, churches, etc., at Christ-tide with evergreens is undoubted--the only question is, how old is it? Stow, in his _Survey_, says: "Against the Feast of Christmas, every man's house, as also their parish churches, were decked with holme, ivy, bayes, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green. The Conduits and Standards in the streets were, likewise, garnished; among the which I read that, in the year 1444, by tempest of thunder and lightning, towards the morning of Candlemas day, at the Leadenhall in Cornhill, a standard of tree, being set up in the midst of the pavement, fast in the ground, nailed full of holme and ivie, for disport of Christmass to the people, was torne up and cast down by the malignant Spirit (as was thought), and the stones of the pavement all about were cast in the streets, and into divers houses, so that the people were sore aghast at the great tempests." [Footnote 40: Langley's _Abridg._, p. 100.] Stow, we see, makes no mention of mistletoe, nor do we find it in old churchwardens' accounts, because mistletoe was accounted a heathen plant, on account of its association with the Druids, and not only was therefore unsuitable to bedeck a place of Christian worship, but the old rite of kissing beneath it rendered it inadmissible. Still, in Queen Anne's time, it was recognised as a Christmas decoration, for Gay in his _Trivia_ has sung-- When _Rosemary_ and _Bays_, the poet's crown, Are bawl'd in frequent cries through all the town; Then judge the festival of Christmas near, Christmas, the joyous period of the year! Now with bright _Holly_ all the temples strow With _Laurel_ green, and sacred MISTLETOE. The mistletoe is found in several counties in England, but the bulk of that which we have now at Christ-tide comes from Brittany. There is a popular belief that it grows on oaks, possibly on account of Druidical tradition to that effect, but, as a matter of fact, its connection with that tree in England is very rare, Dr. Ball, in a paper in the _Journal of Botany_, only mentioning seven authentic instances of its growth on the oak tree in this country. It principally makes its _habitat_ on the apple, poplar, hawthorn, lime, maple, and mountain ash, and has been found on the cedar of Lebanon and the laurel.