It’s time Rudolph got some respect

By BETSY HART

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

In one of the all time great episodes of “Seinfeld,” George Costanza’s father leads off the family’s Christmastime celebration of “Festivus” by calling for the annual “airing of grievances!”

I don’t celebrate Festivus, but I do have my gripes at Christmastime.

No, it’s not all the “stress” of Christmas. I’ve been cutting back on that (no Christmas cards!) and even the “stuff” under the tree, for a few years now. Santa agrees with me that’s a fine thing.

And I’m more or less over the fact that “Merry Christmas” has been replaced by “Happy Holidays.” I think the change is silly but I’m no longer really offended by the new language. After all, I’m an evangelical who essentially treats Christmas as a secular holiday anyway. Actually, the early Puritans eschewed it altogether because it wasn’t called for in scripture, but that’s another column.

But I’m not over the fact that both “Scrooge” and “The Grinch” have decidedly negative connotations. As in, “he’s a real Scrooge” or “what a Grinch!”

Hello — people, they reformed! These guys went through life transformations. How do we so regularly forget that? We should be saying, “What a generous guy — he’s a real Scrooge,” or “I can’t get over what a sweet fellow he is, what a Christmas Grinch!

Sheesh. Talk about holding a grudge.

Another sign of a really crazy culture? I admit that I like the Dean Martin version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” But my older kids really listened to the lyrics not too long ago and what offended them? Not that the song is essentially one long heavy-handed seduction scene. Oh no, they tuned into the real source of outrage. Forget fornication: “Mama, in the song that woman is smoking a cigarette!”

Sheesh again.

But what has really begun to bug me this year is Rudolph. As in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Better put, what I dislike is how Rudolph is treated. In the famous Gene Autry hit from the 1940s, Rudolph is, of course, shunned by his peers:

“All of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names; they never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.”

Using him

Do the little deer come to see the error of their ways? Do they feel bad because of how they treated Rudolph? No. It’s just that suddenly Rudolph becomes useful to them.

Once they find out he can lead Santa’s sleigh and get the Christmas show on the road, wow, suddenly he’s their best friend:

“Then how the reindeer loved him, as they shouted out with glee, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you’ll go down in history!”

Talk about the ultimate in cynical.

His “friends” decided they “loved” him? Ha, as my mother would say, with friends like that who needs enemies?

The other night, I watched the 1964 classic animated movie, “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” with my kids. Not only does Santa himself tell Donner he should be ashamed of himself for having a red-nosed child (ouch!) but Coach Comet is the one who instructs the young bucks not to let Rudolph play in any reindeer games. I’d like to think it’s all a big morality play, but when Rudolph comes back into their midst at the end of the movie all we hear from the narrator is that the deer and elves started to realize that “maybe they were a little hard on the misfits.”

Like my mom said, with friends like that ...

I guess I should be grateful times have changed. Maybe too much. Today Santa would lose his job because his insensitive comments would be all over youtube.com, and Donner would be sued for inflicting emotional distress on a child.

Yes yes, I realize there are far more important things to worry about.

In fact, one thing I’m especially thankful for this time of year? That I live in a time and place in which I have such delightfully superficial things to gripe about.

Merry Christmas!

X Betsy Hart hosts the “It Takes a Parent” radio show on WYLL-AM 1160 in Chicago. Scripps Howard News Service.