Bruce Littlefield's Life 101

Do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Believe it or not, the scrappy #Christmas fixture’s origins are not as mysterious as you might think. #Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was not one of the original eight reindeer created by Clement Clark Moore. He was invented by Robert L. May, a copywriter for the now-defunct Montgomery Ward department store in 1939. May was asked to create a Christmas story as a “gift” to the store’s customers, and Rudolph was the result. At first May’s superiors were concerned about the little reindeer’s red nose – they were concerned the public would think he was a drunk! But their fears were quickly assuaged when they saw the first few (adorable) pictures of Rudolph. Eventually an American songwriter named Johnny Marks adapted the story into the classic Christmas song, and the little reindeer’s place in popular culture was cemented. Rudolph may have started out as a mascot, but in the years since he’s taken on a life of his own. As every kid and kid-at-heart knows, Rudolph went down in history. (Like Elvis!) The rest of Santa’s reindeer deserve some recognition too – in order to make his 91.8 million stops on Christmas Eve Night, Santa’s sleigh has to travel at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. Those reindeer are nothing short of amazing.

“White Christmas” is the best-selling song of all time, having sold over 100 million copies. Written by Irving Berlin, who was Jewish, and originally sung by Bing Crosby in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn, “#WhiteChristmas” won the Academy Award as Best Original Song and was the pre-arranged signal played on Armed Forces Radio on April 30, 1975, as a signal for Americans to evacuate Saigon, ending the Vietnam War. Legend has it that Berlin, who often stayed up through the night writing, told his secretary one morning, “Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written. Hell, I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!”