
It's All in the Antlers!
ADVERTISEMENT
It's quite possible that Santa's sleigh helpers are magical and so normal physiology doesn't apply. If Santa can make them fly, it seems a small trick to make the males retain their antlers. As well, not all male reindeer/caribou shed their antlers before Christmas. The various populations shed them at different times and there are indeed some populations where the males don't shed their antlers until January.
Love the facts and folklore that ALMANAC shares. I share with our grandchildren, as I used to share with my elementary-age students. You now know that I am a teacher through and through. So please accept some instruction.
REINDEER is both SINGULAR and PLURAL
Reindeers is not correct.
Thanks for the catch! And the kind words. :-)
It isn't antlers that make a reindeer or any other animal great, it's heart. Santa picks the best of the best for that special flight, and if Rudolph and all her teammates happened to be female, hey, even better. Most of my best lead dogs were female. They were focused, fiercely competitive and famously smart. None of them had a nose that glowed red in the dark, however, and for that I'm grateful.
Obviously this story is a joke. We all know that Santa's Reindeer "CANNOT" be females. They could never travel past all of the stores in the world without stopping to look in every window. They could not pass any gas station without stopping to ask for directions nor could they travel that far without getting lost year after year. Only Male Reindeer would or could pass all of those stores & keep going no matter whether they were lost or not without asking directions in an attempt to get home before halftime was over during the game.
Happy Chanukah & Merry Christmas (one without the other is simply incomplete).
.
How clever! Love this article. Honestly, as a kid when "Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer" was written (and not "the most popular kid on the block"), I never liked the concept of the song, because it shows how a once laughed-at reindeer becomes the other reindeers' best friend when Santa shows favoritism toward Rudolph. So much like human female behavior, they most likely ARE females.
Santa's reindeer are a unique species in several ways,not the least of which is their ability to fly...and as science knows,the males of the flying variety maintain their antlers well past Christmas,...they are important steering mechanisms when traveling at the high speeds necessary for global circumnavigation...I thought everyone knew this,after all, it's settled science..
Had heard this when we were in Alaska. No one believed me....will share with others.
Thanks
Of course Santa’s deer are females. Who else but females could haul an old fat guy in a red flannel suit all around the world in one night without stopping to ask for directions!!
Thanks for this pleasant degree of humor …
Comments