Wisdom I Gleaned From The Story Of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
When I think of the story of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, I think of the Rankin/Bass animated production that I religiously watched every Christmas from when I was probably a toddler until I was well into adulthood, I’m not ashamed to say.
Burl Ives swishing around as a snowman… Rudolph’s electrical, red nose… silly elf songs — according to Santa (the elves tried so hard to please him!)… bumbles bouncing. The stop motion technology brilliantly solidified the work as a holiday classic.
As the story goes, everybody was giving Rudolph a hard time about his red nose. His parents tried to hide who he was, forcing him to smear the nose they gave him with mud, which made him sound like he had a stuffy nose.
Finally, one day the decoy popped off, exposing his perceived flaw, and his peers — including his friend, Fireball, who happened to be rocking a ginger mohawk, in 1964 no less, but nobody gave him grief — flipped out and outcast him. Which isn’t surprising; they were young bucks and not very mature. Plus, imagine the shock of seeing a light bulb for somebody’s nose for the first time!
But the coach (Comet, in case you’re wondering) — an adult, an authority figure, a leader! — failed to step up after he freaked out worse than them and say, “Cool it, guys. We need to embrace everyone’s differences. Maybe someday Rudolph’s nose will lead Santa’s sleigh through a terrible snowstorm, or something like that.” The coach lacked foresight.
That wasn’t bad enough.
Santa piped up and shamed Rudolph’s father (Donner) for passing bad genes just minutes after Rudolph dazzled Santa with his phenomenal flying around (geez, Santa). Which was a blow to Rudolph, not just because, what other kind of work could he aspire to as a reindeer living at the North Pole? Santa, too, lacked foresight. And wasn’t very nice. Not to mention, he was wrong: It’s the reindeer’s legs that do the work of flying through the air, not their noses.
In Santa’s defense, I think his not eating from being stressed-out about the impending work deadline made him cranky. He was atypically skinny in that scene.
Of all the insulting names that were flung at Rudolph — beak, fire snout, rainbow puss, red schnoz (I consulted the script) — the one that stuck was the most degrading of all: Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer.
Naturally, Rudolph was hurt. Who wouldn’t be? Nobody wants to be called names and banned from reindeer games, and the most important person in the North Pole — in the world! — didn’t believe in him.
Mind you, it was Clarice — the beautiful, young doe — who was not swayed in the least. She had women’s intuition and saw past the parental folly, bucking around, and Rudolph’s purported occupational hazard to his character. She knew Rudolph was a package. But despite her support and affections, ashamed, dejected, feeling unworthy and traumatized, Rudolph ran away to do some soul searching.
And met Hermie, who was outcast from the elfen community — same story, different culture, it’s universal — because he wanted to be a dentist. Of all things! But this was before the internet. And together they met a whole colony of misfits… toys! As fate would have it, marketing research missteps. They met a gold hunter, Yukon Cornelius, who taught them a valuable nugget, that you have to face your fears. And proved it to them by taming the bully in those parts, the Bumble, which ended in them falling off a cliff together.
Fortunately, everything turned around in the best possible light, with everyone realizing that they hadn’t been kind to Rudolph, including Santa. Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble bounced back to Christmas Town and put a star atop the Christmas tree, Hermie opened up a dental practice and started taking appointments, and everyone was treating Rudolph right.
But the story doesn’t end there!
Santa was in a pickle. It was Christmas Eve and a terrible snowstorm was forecast all around the world!Or maybe just pulling out of the North Pole. Christmas would have to be cancelled!
As Santa was making the announcement, Rudolph’s nose was ablaze, blinding Santa, who was kinda like, Can you stop that?, failing to recognize the divine timing, the (red) sign delivered by the universe right there before his very eyes… STOP! LOOK, HERE IS YOUR SOLUTION… still testy and perhaps hypoglycemic by that point with so much not eating, skinny in that scene, too…
When finally, it clicked, and Santa declared with glee: “Rudolph, that beautiful, beautiful nose… Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Rudolph, being the good guy that he was, said, Yes! and saved the (holi)day!
Happy at last, Santa finally ate some food and, within minutes, plumped up and was jolly and likin’ the elves holiday songs. The Christmas squad headed out, with their first stop to pick up the misfit toys, as promised by Rudolph, to deliver them to all the good little girls and boys. Because everybody deserves to be loved. Christmas was a success, and all was right with the world.
Going forward, Rudolph would have a job for life because he was the only reindeer with a glowing nose, he won the heart of the lovely Clarice, and he went on to have his story told around the world, forever more.
The takeaway from this story is:
Don’t listen to what anybody has to say about you. Stay in your truth and you will find your place in the world, find success, and even find true love.
