Kissing, that most personal of personal touches, tends to come to life around the holidays. If you avoided being found kissing some cute dish beneath the mistletoe, perhaps you found yourself standing next to a festive dish of mistletoe printed foiled Hershey’s kisses.
Holidays are for kissing, we can all agree on that.
“Kisses are like tears, the only real ones are the ones you can’t hold back.”
Physically, a kiss, perhaps just a light peck or an “air kiss” can involve as few as two or three facial muscles and burn about the same number of calories. A more passionate kiss, using your imagination here, might involve a couple of dozen more facial muscles and depending upon the person as well as the passion, a bunch of “postural” muscles too. Not just a muscular experience, kissing is known to release happy hormones inside your body and lowers the release of stress hormones.
It’s up to you.
“They invented hugs and kisses to let people know you love them without saying anything.”
Kisses can be blown; they only count if the recipient snaps their head sideways in receipt. They can also be stolen; perhaps you remember the large-chested character from the 1970s and ‘80s known as “Morganna the kissing bandit.” Famously, she trotted onto baseball diamonds and basketball courts mid-game kissing guys like George Brett, Nolan Ryan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
According to musicians Hall and Oates, your kiss is on their list. From a totally different song, a kiss on the cheek can be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend. And, what yuletide kissing-related column would be complete without a tip of the red and white felt topper to that little kid that snuck down the stairs just to talk about seeing Mommy kissing Santa Claus?
Who doesn’t remember the first time they saw the band, Kiss? Not necessarily a band to kiss by, Gene Simmons and the boys rolled their flaming rock and roll show into northern Michigan back in the 1970s. Coincidentally that was about the time I was getting my first kiss. Perhaps not a coincidence then to hear that my high school had an outbreak of mononucleosis, also known as the kissing disease, during my senior year.
That’s all so much kissing.
The poets will tell you that love is not the number of kisses or how often one gets kissed; it’s the feeling that lingers after the kiss. I’m no poet, but I often measure the true measure of this column much the same way. Not every column stays in my head after it’s been written, but the good ones, well … they get the chef’s kiss.
It’s more urban myth than legend that I tell you that if your nose itches it means that you’re about to kiss a fool. Maybe not a fool, but perhaps another animal? Humans aren’t the only animals that smooch. Dogs, of course, but cows, puffins, squirrels and snails have all been scientifically observed kissing. Although chimpanzees are the only animals whose kisses resemble the kisses that humans execute. (Sometimes I hate the things I find while doing research.)
Of all the kisses, from pecks to passionate, it’s got to be the goodbye kiss that carries the most weight. As midwesterners, it can come at any number of places during a proper 15-minute long goodbye.
Keep it in mind as you celebrate New Year’s Eve tonight. Along with wishes for a safe night and a prosperous and healthy 2024, I have one last request for 2023:
Let’s kiss it goodbye.
MWAH!