Rendahl: Who Moved My Reindeer?

I asked my eight-year-old niece Sydney for a topic to treat in this column space. She sat cross-legged on the kitchen island and thoughtfully considered my request. With little hesitation, she suggested weaving a “fantasy narrative” (her words, not mine) about evil reindeer that kidnap Santa’s legitimate reindeer in order to destroy Christmas. The real reindeer are held captive in Antarctica by evil elves, but they manage to escape just in time to save the North Pole.

It’s a harrowing tale, really. If Santa is the heart of secular Christmas, his elves the hands, and giving the spirit, then the reindeer must be the head and Rudolph the brains. We all know what happens when we lose our head, and we need only ask Scarecrow how hard it is to get a brain. With that in mind, this story illustrates how fundamentally different Christmas would be if the reindeer were in fact captured.

A metaphor for the ages, Syd reminds us to keep track of our figurative reindeer so that our lives don’t go south. Because, dang, the South Pole is not a hospitable place! The year-long average temperature of -49 degrees Celsius means that the snow never melts in some parts of the continent. To boot, there’s a gaping hole in the ozone layer, and that has malignant melanoma written all over my white skin.

When the reindeer are fully functional, we fly high and marvel at the views. Our way is lit and the only trail we leave is a light breeze of happiness. When they’re hijacked and held hostage, we plunge to the bottom of a glacier crevasse and hope the rescue crews will find us in time to throw a rope. Saving the real reindeer isn’t just the fanciful thinking of a child the day before Christmas–it’s the stuff of life.

Indeed, we are sometimes held hostage not by evil elves, but by evil selves. We lose a part as integral as the reindeer to Christmas and become shadows of what we once were. Escaping this cold, lonely reality is something like navigating the mall on Black Friday during booming economic times: chaotic and overwhelming. Only when our internal Rudolph navigation system is fully operational can we find our way.

I remember attending a conference in Yerevan some 10 years ago. The moderator asked participants to share their dreams for Armenia. One friend went to the microphone and said that she looked forward to the day when Armenians identified themselves as Armenians, not some hyphenated descriptor. They would say, “Yes hay em” (I am Armenian). Period. This, her aspiration suggested, would be an important step in the unification of the people. Herself an Armenian from the U.S. by way of Egypt, she is an expert in trying to keep track of her true identity.

It takes throngs of everyday heroes like my friend to create a healthy society. We owe them a debt of gratitude for reminding us to be uncompromising about who we are. That’s not to say that there is not richness in a hybrid identity, but it is to say that we must know that when the rubber hits the road–or the hooves hit the roof–we know what we stand for. We must keep the illegitimate reindeer with the menacing goatees at bay. We must be sure that we do not become the polar opposite (pun intended) of what we should be.

And so, as we enter 2012 and approach Armenian Christmas, I resolve to be one of those people. I resolve to keep track of the reindeer and to feed them a healthy diet of courage. After all, Christmas depends on it.

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Kristi Rendahl

Kristi Rendahl is associate professor and director of the nonprofit leadership program at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Prior to starting with MSU in 2017, she worked for over 20 years with nongovernmental organizations on several continents, including living in Armenia from 1997-2002. She speaks Armenian and Spanish.