“Hollies” reminds me the famous Christmas song known for this phrase “Deck the halls with bought of holly.” Their jagged green leaves and red berries are used for wreathes and essential for the holiday season.
In both Japan and Europe, they are believed as things that drive away evil spirits and protect them.
Their trunks are covered with thorns and these thorns are considered to remove bad evils. Because they are in Osmanthus of the family Oleaceae and it is the same as fragrant olives, pretty white flowers of hollies smell like fragrant olives.
Japanese name “Hiiragi” came from Japanese traditional word, “hiiragu” meaning hurt since it hurts when people touch hollies’ leaves. Hollies are usually associated to winter and you can enjoy this winter more than before after knowing the meaning of holly plants. I’ll introduce these seven reasons.
7 reasons of happier winter with meanings of hollies
Stay at home
The first meaning of hollies is careful, and this originates from thorns of their leaves that warn us not to be close and touch.
In winter, it is very cold and freezing outside. It is better to be at home carefully following the meaning of hollies, careful. It is a waste of time to be just relaxed inside of the house.
Decorating is popular recently, so let’s try to make a little decoration of holly plants for meals. First, peel cucumbers, cut them as normal leaf shapes, then make leaf shapes of hollies by using a straw. Next, peel imitation crabmeat’s red skin and scoop out as red berries of hollies. Combine both leaves and berries like holly plants.
The cute decorations are a good idea for meal time.
Go out to find guarded flowers
After seasons of the fragrant olives, the fortune’s osmanthus starts to smell just before winter. They have the same lactone scent as other flowers of Osmanthus. The scent is thick and sweet.
They smell casually and you can find them by this little sweet scent if you walk near to the flowers. You can find holly plants around the fortune’s osmanthus and the hollies have guarded white flowers. Their flower meaning “defense” means because they protect their flowers.
The fortune’s osmanthus does not be used to make oil and I have not seen any perfume of its scent. It smells less during the beginning of winter, so it is good time to find the fortune’s osmanthus and the hollies.
Be protected by leaves thrusting evil eyes
One of Japanese name of holly plants is leaves thrusting evil eyes. Its origin is a legend that people defeat an evil by thrusting hollies’ leaves to his eyes.
In Japan, people put a sardine’s head with hollies at the entrance of their houses because evils hate the smell of sardines and jagged leaves of holly plants.
The smell and leaves protect them from evils. It is also “defense,” the meaning of hollies.
Holly plants like sunlight, but they are weak in dry air and fond of warm weather. Although they hate cold winds, it is easy to grow them and I recommend buying a potted hollies. They will protect you from evils by their power.
Get the power of defeating evil spirits
The hollies decorated in the holiday seasons are called English holly and different from Japanese ones. Japanese holly is classified in the family of Oleaceae, but English holly is in the family of Aquifoliaceae.
English hollies were given its name since they are similar to Japanese hollies. Japanese hollies have two leaves on a stalk’s knot and one leaf positions on the opposite to the other one, while English hollies have leaves alternately. In Europe, hollies are a charm against evils too, so you can have more protection by growing both Japanese and English hollies.
English hollies can be grown by the same way as Japanese hollies. A sunny place is good to have berries for English hollies, and they hate being dry and like wet humus and sandy ground.
Get a good luck of English holly’s foresight
English holly’s birthday is December 24 th.
Hollies were used to prevent from evils attempting mischief. They are called Christmas holly too and it means holy.
The reason why hollies are popular as Christmas decorations is that Christians gave it as gift in the past Rome during Yule and Saturnalia. They are also considered as the first plant which grew at Jesus’s foot.
Besides, leaves and red berries refer his suffering and blood. White flowers are associated to his birth and bitter bark is associated to the passion of Jusus. Hollies have known his destiny as their flower meaning, foresight.
Get more knowledge by reading books
The meaning of hollies is foresight. When they are baby trees, they have sharp serrations and these become dull or completely invisible as they grow up, so hollies are described as people’s lives.
Elder people can detect what happens in the future due to their wide knowledge and it is the origin of the word, foresight. To get more knowledge to see the future like they do, why don’t you try to read books?
Holly plants are written in many parts of the famous Christmas stories such as A Christmas Carol and Little Women, and these stories have a lot of useful information. These many lessons help you to get experiences in order to expect the future.
Give a warm welcome to winter
One of English holly’s flower meanings is welcome.
My suggestion is to cook a butter cake decorated like a Christmas wreath of hollies during looking up the winter night sky.
Prepare 100g of unsalted butter as room temperature, add 70g of sugar to the butter and whip using a whisk. Put one egg and 100g of pancake mix into it, then mix them by a spatula.
It should be hard dough. Next, spread butter and flour inside of an 18cm cake tin and place the dough in it. Bake at 180℃ for 35 minutes. Put 50g of power sugar, 2 tbsp of milk, 1 tbsp of lemon juice into another bowl in the written order and blend them well. After cooling the baked cake, spread it on the cake.
Finally, slice Angelica and shred drained cherries to decorate the cake as a Christmas wreath.
How did you like it?
Let’s get relaxed with looking green leaves of holly plants in a warm and “guarded” house during winter time. As I said, reading books helps you have wide knowledge and “foresight.”
Cooking a cake and enjoying it with hot and deep tea make me feel “welcome” winter.
However, a sweet cake contains a lot of calories, so why don’t you go out to look for guarded white flowers of hollies with sweet scent for some exercises? Be “careful” not to rush to lose weight when spring comes.
Summary
7 reasons of happier winter with meanings of hollies
Stay at home
Go out to find guarded flowers
Be protected by leaves thrusting evil eyes
Get the power of defeating evil spirits
Get a good luck of English holly’s foresight
Get more knowledge by reading books
Give a warm welcome to winter