a history lesson...

 I knew this started with Montgomery Ward, a long gone department store that holds happy memories for me.  My brothers and I spent long hours pouring over the Montgomery Ward and Sears Christmas catalogs, pages and pages of dreams.  But this is another bit of history, from my trivia calendar.  In 1939, Robert May, a copywriter who worked for Montgomery Ward was instructed to write an original Christmas story that could be printed as a small booklet and handed out to customers.  He created the red nosed reindeer.  My husband, who was born in 1935, actually had one of those little booklets.  Later of course, Rudolph became the hero of a song.  Do you remember who first sang it?  I think I know and will tell you tomorrow.  A side note here - the Santa and reindeer that are displayed every winter in downtown Fort Wayne did not originally have a red nosed leader.  That was added after the song became popular.