A Fuzzy Feel-Good Christmas Time

by Robert Eringer

I grew up celebrating Christmas and I’m not trading it for “winter holidays” or anything else.

Greet me with “Happy Hannukah” or “Happy Kwanzaa” or “Happy Holidays” or whatever makes you feel good, fine with me, glad you are enjoying the Yuletide season, but I’m sticking with “Merry Christmas!”

For me this is a cultural, not a religious thing. I did some Sunday schooling at a Unitarian church but discovered spirituality much later in life. 

Much more important to me as a child were Christmas trees and frosty snowmen and carols vibrating from the hi-fi radio and nighttime drives around other neighborhoods to see twinkly displays of Christmas lights but most especially Santa Claus on a sleigh with reindeer led by a red-nosed Rudolph flying above Wilshire Boulevard & Beverly Drive.

Lugging home an evergreen from Ralphs was a big deal – and an even bigger deal for my father who braved stinging pine needles to strand it with colored lights that, back then, were rather temperamental. 

Thereafter, all family members participated in the ritual of adorning the tree with glass ornaments, silvery tinsel, a Nativity scene beneath and a silver star on top. It was a warm and fuzzy family experience celebrated with hot cocoa and marshmallows in festive mugs and much good cheer.

I still have the red and white stocking I hung over the fireplace as a kid and, even though it is frayed and beat up, I bring it out annually. Just looking at it makes me feel like a happy eight-year-old.

Christmas Eve was a very special affair with friends dropping by and, for we kids, excited anticipation about the impending arrival, once we were asleep, of St. Nick, for whom we set out a note and cookies.

There was simply nothing better as a child than the thrill of rounding a corner into the living room early Christmas morning to find a stocking loaded beyond the brim with chocolate and candy canes and small gifts and, under the tree, dozens upon dozens of beautifully wrapped and ribboned presents for my two brothers and me.

Bring On the ‘Shrooms

But what does any of this have to do with Christmas, Santa Claus, and flying reindeer?

A lot.

The common denominator, writes Jerry and Julie Brown in The Psychedelic Gospels, would be the agaric (magic) mushroom, to which reindeer are drawn and provides them “shamanic flight.”

And this: Santa’s red and white costume mimics the magic mushroom.

“It is generally believed that the whole ‘Santa Claus’ myth is a folkloric tradition of shamanic travel,” says Carl Ruck, a professor of classical studies at Boston University, “and that reindeer are notorious for liking to eat these mushrooms and become inebriated on them.”

Continues Professor Ruck: “Santa is the personification of the mushroom’s spirit.”

Moreover, indigenous Arctic peoples celebrated Winter Solstice with agaric mushrooms, hanging them (as ornaments) from the branches of pine trees (beneath which the red-capped mushroom grew) or wrapping them in socks (stockings) over a fire to dry them out.

Consumption of the mushroom thereafter brought everyone a feeling of merriment and good tidings of great joy.

Merry Christmas!