Interesting Fact about Christmas #1
Every year those who are from the U.S. celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25, called Christmas. Christmas is stocked full of weird and interesting traditions, for example why do we put a fir tree in our house with presents under it?
Well it's hard to get a real answer because of we have been celebrating it for over 1500 years. Lots of other traditions merged with Christmas to make what we have today. What we will be looking into is more of the origin of Santa Claus.
Saint Nicholas was definitely a large influence to Santa Claus but you might already now something about him. Introduce Amanita muscaria, the Fly Agaric. Do you notice anything similar with this mushroom and Christmas? Well there is tons of possible connections.
Far in the north such as Lapland and Siberia A. muscaria was collected by the Shaman. They were the ones who would go out and collect them. They had so much reverence for this mushroom and the hallucinogenic properties that they would often dress up in red and white.
Now before I go any further I do need to say that most of this is just a theory, but with so much in common it seems impossible that there is not a connection.
Around the beginning of winter the Shaman would distribute their mushrooms to the common people and normally there would be too much snow to enter at the door so they might drop the mushrooms down the chimney, or the equivalent of that for the yurts.
A. muscaria grows under pine and fir trees so think of the tree, well, as your tree in your house and the mushrooms might represent your colorfully wrapped presents. Flying Reindeer is thought to have come to people hallucinating from the mushroom and seeing flying Reindeer, after all they both occur in those areas. And the elves might be the Shamans "helpers" to find spiritual insight. Also to make A. muscaria less poisonous (yes it contains toxins) they would hang the mushrooms on trees to dry, does that sound familiar? And you could also dry them by hanging them in a stocking by the fire.
Anyways I hope you learned something new and remember Christmas is to celebrate our Lords birth on this earth. I hope you all have a great Christmas and may God bess you and your upcoming year.
