HOLLY (_Ilex aquifolium_). Holly, with its beautiful red berries and unique leaf, stiff and prickly, but highly decorative, is the chief emblem of Christmas. We are continuing very ancient traditions when we hang up our Christmas wreaths and garlands. The earliest records of the human race contain references to the custom of decorating houses and temples and evergreens on occasions of rejoicing. Holly comes to us from pagan usage. Five hundred years before the birth of Christ the Romans had been celebrating their midwinter festival--the Saturnalia--commemorating the equality supposed to have existed on earth in the golden reign of Saturn. The Saturnalia was a period of general merry-making and relaxation. People gave each other presents, wished each other "Io Saturnalia," just as we wish each other "Merry Christmas," and decorated their houses and temples with evergreens, among which holly was conspicuous. The early Christians, who celebrated the birth of Christ during the Saturnalia, adorned their homes with holly for the purpose of safety. They would have been unpleasantly noticed had they left their homes undecorated. After a time holly became associated with the Christian festival itself. As the Christmas celebration spread throughout Europe and into Great Britain, local observances naturally became added to the original rites; and gradually to certain features taken over from the Saturnalia were added customs which the Germanic tribes, the Scandinavians, the Gauls, the Celts, and early Britons practised for the midwinter festival. "Thus," says a modern writer, "all the pagan winter festivals were transmuted and sanctified by the Christian Church into the beautiful Christmas festival that keeps the world's heart young and human. The Church also brought from ancient observances a number of lovable customs, such as the giving of presents, the lighting of candles, the burning of the Yule-log, the Boar's Head, the Christmas Tree, the mistletoe, the holly, laurel and other greens and the mince-pies." At a season when everything was chosen to commemorate, or invoke, the spirit of growth, or fertility, the holly, mistletoe and ivy--all of which bear fruit in the winter--become particularly precious. Beautiful, cheery holly, with its glossy, prickly leaves and its coral bells, was a sacred plant in the childhood of the world and will continue to be a sacred plant as long as the world lasts. We may make garlands of laurel or bay-leaves, we may bind together ropes of crow's-foot or smilax, and we may bring into our rooms pots of poinsettia; but nothing takes, or will ever take, the place the holly occupies in our affections. In our literature holly is honored. It now symbolizes the spirit of Christmas as nothing else does.