The santa claus story is veeery random. Like flying reindeers just like that, a dude in red-white clothes, a pine tree with red balls on it.

People dried fly agaric mushrooms on pine trees, they are red. Sibirian shamans dressed like a fly agaric mushroom and went from house to house to gift them to people and make them less depressed, because they are said to help with that

Its pretty funny and makes a lot of sense