Editor's note: This marks the 30th anniversary of Otus' beloved annual Christmas column. It's a saga of fleeting fame and the consequences of unbridled hubris. It is the true lesson of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Caribou.
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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was, in fact, a caribou. Having been born on the southern fringes of Baffin Island, he came from the wrong side of the prime meridian. And although also a Rangifer tarandus, he was not, technically, a reindeer. It was an accident of birth that tormented him all his days. Rather than embracing life as he was, Rudolph tried "to pass."
Abandoned by his mother at a tender age, Rudolph wandered aimlessly ever northward until he stumbled upon Santa's workshop, the sprawling 868-acre compound that surrounds the North Pole.
At first he was overjoyed to be in the company of such a seemingly cheerful and industrious lot. Hundreds of carefree elves, Santa and Mrs. Claus labored in an idyllic setting of perpetual merriment and Yuletide purpose.
Or so it seemed. The elan was superficial, the camaraderie a sham. The elves saw themselves as little more than indentured servants and, with no place to go since the failure of the Great Gnome Insurrection of 1428, they secretly cursed their jolly taskmaster and his termagant wife.
Sometimes, when he wasn't looking, they spit in Santa's nog.
Frolicking nearby were the eight reindeer that annually pulled Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. Rudolph thought he had stumbled upon paradise. But all was not as it seemed here, either. Bubbling beneath this facade was a seething cauldron of petty jealousy.
The reindeer, it turns out, had been vying among themselves for eons to curry Santa's favor. Their sycophantic service one night a year left them with low self-esteem, especially since all the fat old twit ever said to them was "Now! Now!" and "On! On!"
When Rudolph arrived and tried to pass himself off as a reindeer, they turned on him like bad cheese.
Dasher, the alpha male, was the first to ostracize the diminutive newcomer. Dancer, Dasher's sniveling lackey, hectored Rudolph with taunts and jibes.
But perhaps most egregious was the incessant torment that came from Prancer, Vixen, Comet and Cupid. The four malcontents would surround Rudolph (always out of sight of Santa) and tease him about his red nose, an unfortunate congenital deformity that ungulate scholars suspect may have been the reason his mother abandoned him in the first place.
Donder, the dim-witted one, would prance about the circle grunting Laplandish non sequiturs, and Blitzen, the most Nordic and racially xenophobic of the lot, spent his days sulking and thinking dark thoughts.
The essentials of the tragic tale are recorded in the well-known Christmas song:
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose,
And if you ever saw it,
You would even say it glowed.
"Glowed" would be politically correct. At its worst, REN (rhinitis epistaxis nostrildamus) can be painfully blinding to the afflicted.
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names.
They wouldn't let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games.
The physical abuse, hurled invectives and lack of social intercourse only served to exacerbate Rudolph's nasal condition until it came to the attention of Santa Claus.
Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say,
"Rudolph, with your nose so bright,
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
Rudolph was overjoyed to be singled out by Santa on the one occasion in hundreds of years when adverse weather conditions threatened to cancel Christmas. He felt needed, loved. It went to his head. He considered himself special and had the temerity to gloat in front of the others. It was a tragic flaw and set him up for a tragic fall.
Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee,
"Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,
You'll go down in history."
It was all a superficial show for Santa. Unfortunately, the next year's Christmas Eve dawned clear and bright and Rudolph was not needed. In fact, the addition of a ninth reindeer had spoiled the sleigh's aerodynamics and made Santa late to parts of South America. He had been in a terrible mood all year and blamed Rudolph.
Alone and shunned once again, Rudolph's fragile psyche snapped and he wandered off a broken figure to an ice floe where, legend has it, he was eaten by polar bears. All except his nose, which the usually thorough omnivores found disgusting.
Until next time, Kalaka admonishes you to learn from Rudolph's mistakes and accept yourself for who you are.
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HomeStyle on 12/19/2015