Everything I Learned about Christmas I Learned from Watching TV, Part 2: A Place for Misfits

After watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas l knew there was something special about Christmas. But How the Grinch Stole Christmas never says exactly why Christmas is special. I got a clue to answering this question by watching that classic Christmas program Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

The entire plot of Rudolf centers around misfits. The central misfits are Rudolf and the elf Hermey.

Rudolf, obviously, has some kind of genetic mutation. He's got a red nose and that, well, just isn't natural. So he is shunned, mocked, and excluded from the reindeer games.

Hermey has a different problem. He sucks at making toys. And he also doesn't enjoy singing in Santa's elf choir. What Hermey really wants to be is a dentist. But for this curious interest he is, like Rudolf, ostracized and made fun of. They are both, clearly, misfits. This is captured in the mournful little song they sing, "Why am I such a misfit?"

For these scenes and the song see here:



So Hermey and Rudolf leave Christmas Town set out on their own.

The misfit theme is continued when Hermey, Rudolf, and Yukon Cornelius, after being chased by The Abominable Snowman, find the Island of Misfit Toys. This is an island where rejected, unwanted, and unloved toys find sanctuary. Rudolf, sympathetic to the plight of the Misfit Toys, because Rudolf knows what it's like to be a misfit, promises to take their plight to Santa:



At this point in the show all the misfit themes are coming to a climax. We see misfits seeking community, we see empathy as one misfit identifies with another, and, finally, we see one misfit seeking to act as savior. A misfit to save the misfits. A misfit Messiah.

But the theology or Rudolf takes its most radical, surprising, and extreme turn when the personification of evil, The Abominable Snowman, comes back from death in a quirky resurrection event--Bumble's Bounce!--as a peaceable creature who is also in need of loving community. Apparently, this "evil" creature is also a misfit. And the hint is that he's "abominable" because he's been marginalized and without community. Many "evil" people might just be misfits, but twisted due to being isolated for way too long while stewing in their loneliness. Maybe if Rudolf, Hermey and all those misfit toys were left isolated for too long they would also, in the end, become "abominable."



So, summarizing all this, I learned from Rudolf this important lesson about Christmas: Something about Christmas means misfits have a place, a community, a home. Or, rephrased, Christmas means that there are no more misfits.

But I was still puzzled as a child. From How the Grinch Stole Christmas I learned that Christmas was more than presents and Christmas trees. And from Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer I learned that Christmas had something to do with misfits finding a place of love. But in both shows the reason behind it all remained elusive. Why do misfits have a home? And what does being a misfit have to do with Christmas? Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer never says.

So I was quite puzzled. But luckily, there was more TV to watch! And I finally got my answers in an speech delivered by a boy who loved to carry a blue blanket...