Donelda arrived today from Chicago, a day late due to car troubles, driving a rented SUV. This allowed her to bring down Rudolph which had adorned my parents home each Christmas from 1994 to 2002. I was living in Oklahoma City in 1994 and visited Mary in Minneapolis for Thanksgiving. We went to the Mall of America on Black Friday which still stands out in my mind because the mall was not at all crowded despite being the day after Thanksgiving. I bought Rudolph and we took it out to my Ford Taurus but it wouldn't fit in the back seat or the trunk no matter how hard we tried. So, we took it back inside the mall to the store and had them ship it to my parents in Palatine.

My dad put Rudolph on the roof of the house partly because he was afraid of it being stolen but also because that's just where Rudolph belongs. I never saw him put Rudolph up but am told he had rigged some sort of pulley system to get him up there which he continued to do well into his 70's.

I didn't have time nor the inclination to stand out in the cold to get a good picture of Rudolph. A still image doesn't do him justice anyway as the lights continually move around the silhouette. Rudolph's red nose originally just consisted of a few red silhouette lights. But, my dad rigged up a red C9 bulb to better show off Rudolph's nose-so-bright. Rudolph was the perfect edition to our Christmas lights which the boys insist we add to each year. Look out Griswolds, the Danzes are coming.