According to the Alaskan Department of Wildlife, male reindeer shed their antlers in the late fall. The female of the species does not. They shed in the early spring, so by Christmas their antlers are fully regrown.

Based on that information, Rudolph and her eight companions are female. Not a boy reindeer in the bunch.

Well, that comes as no surprise to me. When you think about the effort required to haul a sleigh with a jolly old fat man and an astronomical number of toys all around the world in one night it makes sense that the reindeer would be female.

OK, so you say just think about how heavy the load would be. It would require the brute strength of males to pull that kind of weight. Under normal circumstances I’d say that is correct, but these are not normal circumstances and these are not normal reindeer. There has to be some pretty serious reindeer magic that would allow the reindeer to fly in the first place, not to mention how much speed would be required to cover the whole world, stopping at every house and be back at the North Pole by daybreak.

The weight involved and the strength required to handle it are not an issue. The fact that it gets done is the issue and females would be far better equipped to accomplish that mission.

It seems to me that great organizational skills and a spirit of reindeer cooperation would be necessary to complete the task.

Have you ever watched a group of women work together on a potluck supper or a rummage sale? That requires organization and cooperation. The same would hold true of the reindeer’s all-night trek around the world.

If the reindeer were male, as the myth would have us believe, the job would take forever to get done. They would be stopping off at every other watering hole and shooting the breeze about the latest reindeer games.

Not to mention that the males would not, without question, put Rudolph in the lead simply because his nose glows. After a few watering hole stops all their noses would be glowing anyway.

I think if the reindeer were male there would be a lot of alpha male jockeying for position and they just might not get off the ground at all.

And, what about all those toys? Do you really think a bunch of males would just haul them around the world without playing with them first? With all the remote controlled toys in Santa’s sleigh do you really think any self-respecting male reindeer would pass up that opportunity?

And then there’s the fact that as Christmas morning dawns around the world all the stockings are stuffed, the cookies and milk consumed and the presents are under the Christmas trees. That is proof that no reindeer got lost by trying a shortcut.

To me that is proof that the Alaskan Department of Wildlife is absolutely correct about the female reindeer.

I mean no disrespect to the male species. I think they are wonderful and we certainly need them to get the Christmas trees into the house and standing straight in the stand. That’s a task that I definitely could not do without the assistance of one of the men of the family.

In fact, I’m willing to bet that Santa’s elves are all male. They do come up with the best ideas for toys and electronics and they love tools and workshops.

But I am now a firm believer that on Christmas Eve, when Santa’s loads up his sleigh and hooks the team of reindeer to the front of it, they will all be female and the way I see it, the leader of the pack will be the ever popular Rudolphia, the red-nosed female reindeer.