Where did Rudolph come from?
In 1939, Robert May wrote a children’s story about a deer whose glowing nose caused him to be treated like an outcast by his fellow reindeer, and then made him a hero as he led the entire team on a zero-visibility Christmas Eve.
The story was published as a children’s book with great success.
Ten years later, the story was converted into a song.
Gene Autry, singer and cowboy star of movies and television, had two 1947 hits with Here Comes Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
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How did Santa Claus get to be jolly?
The poem The Night Before Christmas, written in 1823, first depicted Santa Claus as “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.” For more than 100 years after publication, the elfin concept of Santa Claus saw many variations of the caricature envisioned in the verses.
In 1931, Swedish-American artist Haddon Sundblom was commissioned by the Coca-Cola Company to do a painting of Santa Claus for an advertisement. In these paintings, Santa remained his jolly self but no longer an elf. Instead, he became a plump man with rosy, red cheeks and a handsome, white beard.
