Let’s jump-start our musical sleigh ride with Santa with one of the sweetest and most incredible of holiday song backstories: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
It was 1938, and with the Christmas season approaching, 34-year-old Bob May, a copywriter for Montgomery Ward in Chicago, had dropped into a trough of rough times. Nearly broke, he was caring for his wife, Evelyn, who was dying of cancer, and for their 4-year-old, Barbara. When she asked, “Why isn’t my mommy like everyone else’s?” May looked for a way to explain that being different was nothing to fear and to reassure Barbara that no matter what happened, he would always love her.
