Bah, Humbug!

I WILL never get used to hearing the vomit-inducing strains of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer blaring from a shop doorway as I make my way through the snowless streets of Porto. At least back in England the creeping pestilence of modern culture can always rely on a little help from the obliging Winter elements. Not to mention, either, that the Jewish songwriter behind this nasty seasonal ditty, Johnny Marks, has about as much in common with Odin, Santa Claus or the birth of Christ as your average Rothschild has with the notion of selfless charity.

Even Rudolph himself is the creation of Robert Lewis May, a Jewish writer from New York, and was produced at the request of a retail enterprise to help them sell colouring books to children. It seems ironic that the very reindeer we are told “will go down in history,” is actually distorting history itself. Welcome to another example of the commodification of European mythology for consumer ends.