I stumbled upon an interesting passage about Arctic pagan roots of Christmas when I stumbled upon this article on shamanism: It has even been suggested that the figure of Father Christmas derives from this type of shamanic practice. At the winter solstice, Finnish shamans would eat large quantities of the highly toxic fly agaric mushroom. They would then go around the village, dressed in red and white to mimic the colouring of the mushroom, and urinate down the smokehole of each hut. The villagers would drink the urine, which would contain a potent - but not life-threatening - dose of the fly agaric toxin.
Getting high by drinking the urine of those who ingested highly toxic mushrooms is the very first image I get when I think about Xmas.
Here's more on that from the good folks at Fungus of the Month! With some great pictures.
