With all that yummy stuff to eat during the Christmas season, like roast goose and baked ham and candied yams, it’s a bit of a mystery to us why anyone would eat poinsettia plants. But people do seem to pass on the fruitcake and reach for the Euphorbia pulcherrima (that’s poinsettia for those of you who are botanically challenged). In the 2004 annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers Toxic Exposure Surveillance System, 2,206 ponsettia exposures were reported to poison control centers.

Here’s the lowdown on the poinsettia chow-down. It’s not going to kill you. Rumors of the lethal effects of the plant probably started back in 1919 when the two-year-old child of a U.S. army officer was thought to have died after ingesting poinsettia leaves. Upon investigation by the American Society of Florists, though, it was determined that that the leaves were not responsible for the death of this child. But the misconception about the poisonous nature of this much maligned plant has persisted. A recent study by Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University determined that out of some 23,000 reported poinsettia exposures, there was essentially no toxicity of any kind.

If you’re heedlessly herbivorous, plan on eating the mistletoe after kissing your sweetheart underneath. That’s not toxic either.