A bright crimson cardinal perched on the snow-flocked evergreen branch outside the window and seemed to announce wisdom emanating from its bird brain.
“We are the reason for red and green at Christmas time,” the eyes of the cardinal seemed to pierce through the panes of glass. As obvious as the scene proposed, did the Cardinal reveal fact, myth, legend, or simply a self-promotional idolatry of its own bird species?
Who ya gonna call? Snopes? Nope! Alexa? Google? Encyclopedia Britannica, wait, its printed page died.
Reader’s Digest provided a condensed response, of course. Christmas’s favorite potted plant, poinsettia, typically shines red and green, although today’s marketers offer alternatives in a modern, divergent, grab for Christmas bucks.
Celtic lore might be a better place to look since Angelkeep Journals’ columnist, Daugherty, is as Celtic as Christmas Eve Day is long. Holly plant’s green leaves and red berries brightened this people group’s midwinter celebrations. Churches liked the combo and picked it up, followed by Victorian era cards and décor, the true beginning of flamboyant Christmas spending on decorations. Angelkeep Journals promises to flashback and reach out to readers with much more holly information in the coming weeks. As the visual and audio media proclaims, “stay tuned.”
Coca-Cola gets a bit of credit, if not originating Christmas colors, certainly engraining them into the lifestyle of the world. In the American marketing scheme to sell Coke to every household holiday gathering, an artist by the name of Haddon Sundblom received a commission to draw Santa Claus for advertising. Prior to Sundblom’s creation, Santa’s robe often came in brown, blue, white, violet, green, or only sometimes red. The artist painted Santa fat, and very, very red, not surprisingly the color of the Coca-Cola logo. “Yes, Virginia, there is a real Santa, just look for the 1931 Coke ads.”
There are those who claim red signifies love, God’s love to the world in sending the Christ Child. Red also represents love’s romance to Valentines. Of course, love is expressed via smooches under Christmas mistletoe, but mistletoe is green, not red. A good salesman would tie a red ribbon around a clump of mistletoe to advance sales, another aspect of “green” at Christmas. Christmas generates lots of green money exchanges.
If a green plant with red berries signifies the true colors of Christmas, then why do Hoosiers not go out to the farm fence rows, the fields, the ditches, and all natural habitats, gathering a large stalk of the invasive honeysuckle plant to decorate and light up for the holiday tradition? Honeysuckle has green leaves adorned with red berries. Birds love them for their weathering protection during the Christmas season. Birds, even the red cardinals, love those red berries. The only drawback seems to be that the Christmas tree vendors could never charge $100 or more for a stalk of Christmas honeysuckle. If every family lighted up a honeysuckle stalk, evergreen sales would plummet so low they would fall into “red” or nonprofit accounting. Scrooge would “see red.”
Consider, if you will, theatrical productions presented in the preceding days leading up to Christmas. Schools, churches, TV, radio, Ouabache State Park, and even Community Theater presents something to celebrate the coming season. Of course, with the necessity of doling out some ‘green’ for the viewing privilege. This arrangement occurred as far back as the 12th century. Angelkeep would not lie, an attempt to keep off the “naughty list.”
Paradise Play depicted a Garden of Eden scene, complete with Adam and Eve’s garden banishment evolving around a tree. The stage set of a garden tree required one that would hold up over practices and several performances. Hence the evergreen. The tree of the fruit of knowledge often resulted from the hanging of apples or pomegranates as “knowledge” ornaments. Voila, red and green. A medieval Shepherd’s Play had a herder presenting the babe with a gift of red cherries.
Red and green are primary and secondary colors appearing opposite each other on the color wheel, thus called complimentary colors. Red is a common favorite color for humans. Green compliments it. Blame the color spectrum.
Final answer: Who picked Christmas red and green? Angelkeep remains partial to the cardinal bird’s chirp, “Pick me, pick me.”
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
