How a Christmas tree ornament may solve the mystery to Santa's flying reindeer

An Amanita muscaria mushroom Christmas tree ornament. (Source: Camosun College.)

A simple red-and-white mushroom Christmas tree ornament may represent more than the festive holiday season, it could hold the key to the age-old secret of how Santa’s reindeer are able to fly.

The origins of many Christmas symbols and cultural traditions can be found in the folklore of communities in the world’s northern hemisphere. The toxic Amanita muscaria mushroom’s connection to Christmas can be found with the Shaman of ancient Siberia.

“Shaman would collect them and dry them as part of the processing by hanging them from the boughs of tress,” said Camosun College Anthropologist Nicole Kilburn. “They also dried them in their socks by hanging them next to the fire.”

Kilburn says the Shaman would give the dried mushrooms – with their distinctive red caps and white polka dots – to villagers as a gift of medicine during the winter solstice. She says the mushrooms were an important part of winter solstice ceremonies in ancient Siberian communities.

“They would gift them to community members to be carefully consumed at the darkest time of the winter solstice,” said Kilburn.

Kilburn says through examination of ancient stone carvings, it would appear reindeer ate the Amanita muscaria mushroom. She says after eating one of their favourite snacks, the beasts would prance, giving the appearance that they were flying.

“We have over 1,000 years of evidence of reindeer taking flight, often with imagery of wings on the ends of their antlers,” said Kilburn. “Though (Amanita muscaria) are toxic to humans, reindeer really enjoy eating these mushrooms and after eating them they appear to prance around and take flight.”

Kilburn says while a mushroom may seem like an unusual Christmas symbol, it has a historical place on a Christmas tree and even has a connection to Santa Claus.

“I think that a mushroom hanging on a Christmas tree is a good reminder that we use lots of symbols and rarely is a mushroom just a mushroom on Christmas tree,” said Kilburn. “We tend to forget that Christmas is not just a commercial holiday because there is a lot of complexity about what people were doing around the winter solstice.”

For more information, you can watch Nicole Kilburn’s video on the symbolism behind popular holiday traditions on YouTube.