Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer

13 12, 2021

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’s Backstory

By |2021-12-11T21:22:07-06:00December 13th, 2021|Holidays|2 Comments

This time of year we hear the song “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” a lot. The story behind the song is fascinating.

In 1938 Bob May, a 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward in Chicago was exhausted and nearly broke. His holiday season held no comfort or joy. His wife bedridden, losing her two-year battle with cancer. His four-year-old daughter Barbara feeling left out, different.

Bob understood. He’d been a small, sickly boy, constantly picked on and called names. He wanted to show Barbara that being different was nothing to be ashamed of and created a bedtime tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team.

Barbara loved the story so much that she made him tell it every night. Because he couldn’t afford to buy her a gift for Christmas, Bob turned the story into a homemade picture book.

Bob’s wife died in early December. A few days before Christmas, he attended a Montgomery Ward company party where co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. There was a standing ovation when he finished. Everyone wanted copies of their own.

Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, the store gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house made offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of goodwill, the department store returned all rights to Bob.

Four years later, Bob May’s bedtime Rudolph story made him a millionaire. He remarried, had a growing family, and felt blessed by his good fortune. But there was more good fortune to come.

Songwriter Johnny Marks married Robert May’s sister. Marks set the uplifting story to music. Several popular recording artists including Bing Crosby all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Johnny Marks begged him to give it a second listen.

Autry played it for his wife, Ina. The line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” touched her so she insisted her husband record the tune. Within a few years, the song became the second best-selling Christmas song after “White Christmas.”

As the years passed, the story’s popularity never waned. On Dec. 6, 1964, NBC broadcast the first Rudolph TV special and it has been broadcast every year since making it the longest-running Christmas TV special in history.

Rudolph lives through TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, plush toys, greeting cards, and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The story symbolizes Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees, and presents.

And, the backstory is wonderful. However, …

a fact check with Snoops says the often-quoted story is only partly true. Bob May authored the story for Montgomery Ward as part of this job as a copywriter in the PR department and “tested” it on his daughter. After Montgomery Ward had given away copies for 6 years, they looked for something new for their Christmas giveaways. That’s when May asked for his rights back and they gave it to him.

The success part of “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,” on the other hand, is completely true.

Enjoy Gene Autry singing his version with a 1953 Ed Sullivan Show audience.

9 12, 2013

Christmas Customs and Traditions – Carols and Caroling

By |2021-12-11T10:44:25-06:00December 9th, 2013|Holidays, Make Me Think Monday|0 Comments

Christmas music blogEvery year, the holidays bring Christmas music playing non-stop through store speakers and on every radio station. Satellite radio devotes entire channels to holiday songs. Cable networks have channels exclusively for holiday music and shows.

Christmas carols show up at the same time every year and their annual appearance signals the descent of the Christmas spirit.

According to blogger Nathan Heller, “A December without them would be strange and slightly lonely, yet the prospect of their absence tends to be, by one week in, a reason in itself to look forward to the New Year.”

The word carol or carole is a medieval word of French and Anglo-Norman origin, meaning a dance song or a circle dance accompanied by singing. A carol, by broad definition, means a song of joy.

Yuletide songbooks overflow. Church hymnals devoted whole sections to Christmas songs.

Probably the most popular Christmas song is Jingle Bells, a song written by James Lord Pierpont, not for Christmas, but for the sleigh races held in his New England hometown.

Johnny Marks, a Jew who specialized in Christmas songs, gave us “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer“,”Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree“, and “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas.” There’s a complete list of his songs here.

rudolphsheetmusicI still dig out my copy of the original Rudolph sheet music every year.

But the tunes I think of as Christmas carols date back to the 14th century and the medieval English songs written with alternating verse and refrain, at times blending two languages such as English and Latin.

Songs sung around the themes of the Christ child or the Virgin Mary.

The carols bring to mind the Victorian era and Christmas caroling with ladies with muffs and men in top hats. Victorian Carolers

And, family times around the piano on Christmas Eve singing carols from the church hymnal. Christmas 1957

 

A tradition our family carries from generation to generation.

music traditionEvery year new versions of these old songs, secular and traditional, emerge.

The popularity of flash mob caroling found in the video below confirms the impact Christmas carols and caroling can have.

People stop what they are doing. They listen. They join in.

Whether you lean toward secular songs or Christmas hymns or newer contemporary songs, carols and caroling bring a Christmas spirit that speaks to the continuity of Christmas past and a hope of Christmas future.

YOUR TURN: Do you have a favorite Christmas tune?

24 12, 2012

ASL Merry Christmas

By |2012-12-24T06:30:01-06:00December 24th, 2012|Monday Motivations, Uncategorized|4 Comments

My second language is American Sign Language (ASL). No, I’m not deaf. I fell in love with the language of the deaf through one of my best friends in high school whose parents were deaf.

Christmas carols and songs are such fun in sign language. Today I wanted to share via that language.

Join along with the Deaf Direct in Worcester, signing a familiar Christmas carol:

For fun:

And lastly, my wish for you on this Christmas Eve:

14 12, 2012

Chickens and Holiday sweaters: Miller Farm Blog

By |2012-12-14T07:41:50-06:00December 14th, 2012|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|2 Comments

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Chicken Wrangler emails for today’s seasonal email titled

Don We Now our Gay Apparel

Exactly nineteen years ago, my parents gave me a Christmas sweater. It was something they knew I would never buy for myself but would love. They were absolutely right. I wore that sweater for many years. In fact, I wore it in our Christmas picture for our daughters first Christmas.

Christmas 1993

This very same daughter, nineteen years later, has borrowed this sweater not once but twice to enter in “tacky Christmas sweater” contests.

I would be offended except for two years running, it has won.This year, she wasn’t even the one wearing it.

I think I deserve at least some kind of prize for having held on to that sweater long enough for college kids to think it is tacky.

Today was the first really cold day of the season so I pulled out my Christmas sweatshirt. It is even older than my tacky sweater.

I got it from my music class after my first Christmas program (which was several years before our first daughter was born). It has the name of the Christmas musical – “The Town Hall Christmas Tree” – on the front and all the kids’ handprints in red and green on the back and down the arms.

front of sweatshit

 

Sara's sweatshirt

This morning my son looked at me as I was putting on my shoes over my Christmas socks so I could take him to school and said, “I’m glad you are not getting out of the car.” 

I almost got out and gave him a big hug just for spite.

Later I was at the doctor for my annual check -up and as I stepped on the scale (a frightful thing in and of itself) the nurse said, “What a cute sweatshirt. Are those the handprints of your grandkids.” 

I texted my son later and said “Maybe I should have stayed in the car.”

I laughed and laughed when I received this email from Chicken Wrangler Sara. What fun to remember all the times like she described when she or her teenaged siblings asked me to wait in the car or wouldn’t let me out of the house because what I had on didn’t suit them. We call her sister Stef the fashion police even today!

I love Christmas and have multiple Christmas sweaters. Depending on the occasion, I select which one to wear. And, like an actress take on different persona depending on which I’m wearing.

For fun, casual parties and gatherings, especially those with sweater contests I wear this one. btw, it was purchased at the same time we bought CW Sara’s in 1993.  

O

For more glitzy affairs when I need bling and swing, I choose this one:

O

And for conservative affairs, my Ralph Lauren angora. With a long skirt or jeans with high boots, I’m styling.

O

But the most fun comes from wearing the homemade variety. My girls will probably kill me for this one, but I loved the year I made us all red sweatsuits with appliqued Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. The suits are long gone, but oh what fun Christmas memories!

christmassweatshirts

CW Sara has carried on the tradition of creating crafty Christmas garments.

O

We have wreaths with children’s finger and handprints, wall hangings of hand prints/foot prints, and one years she managed to collect ALL eleven grandkids for a handprint Christmas table cloth. Unfortunately, due to the tipping point decision, that tablecloth is packed in storage awaiting our move to Colorado so I can’t show a picture.

YOUR TURN: Do you have any special handcrafted Christmas items?

Go to Top