Long before it was a song and even longer before it was a yearly Christmas television special, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was a story published by the Montgomery Ward Company in 1939. The character Rudolph was created by Robert L. May as an assignment for Montgomery Ward.

The song was written by Johnny Marks, who just happened to be Robert L. May’s brother-in-law. Ten years later Gene Autry recorded it, taking it to number one on the U.S. charts the week of Christmas 1949.

The song originally had an added introduction of “You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?” and Autry’s version is still often heard with that as part of it.

This year the song has been inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being ”culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.

Why is “Rudolph” one of my twenty-five favorite Christmas songs? It brings back fond memories of being a kid at Christmas and the yearly watching of the television special.

Fun Rudolph fact: The “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” television special is sixty years old this year and is being broadcast tonight December 6 on NBC, where it first debuted back in 1964 on the same date. It hasn’t been with NBC for fifty years. An extra ten minutes has been added to the special.

It’s funny people only bitch at needing to pay for health insurance but don’t flinch when it comes to paying auto, home or pet insurance. Most are the same people who don’t even have the most important insurance of all: LIFE INSURANCE.

To many it officially becomes Christmas once “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is played on the air for the first time. Starting in October the internet is filled with memes of Mariah “defrosting”. Although this song is only thirty years old (this year), it already is a Christmas classic.

Written by Carey and Walter Afanasieff for her first holiday album titled “Merry Christmas”, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released on October 29, 1994.

It has become a song that one either loves or hates. I like it simply because it just isn’t Christmas without it. It’s one of the most iconic modern Christmas songs and in 2023 Billboard named it the “greatest holiday song of all time based on commercial performance”.

Considering it’s only thirty years old and has already been covered by artists from Michael Buble to Barry Manilow, it certainly has proven it’s not going away anytime soon.

Today UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside a New York City hotel where he was going to be attending the company’s investors conference.

They know it was a targeted attack. The person who killed Thompson knew he’d be there, although I understand that Thompson’s schedule was public so anyone could have known.

And we can surmise until the cows come home that it was some patron unhappy with high insurance premiums or poor insurance coverage from UnitedHealthCare. And maybe it was. Or maybe the motive has nothing to do with that at all. For all we know it was a hit man hired by a jilted lover or an employee who got canned. The point is, a man was killed in broad daylight, he shouldn’t have been killed and the killer is still on the loose.

Of course everyone always says “oh CEOs make so much money and insurance companies rip you off, blah, blah, blah”. And some of that may be true. But everyone knows the higher up in a company you are, the more money you’re going to make. Even administrative assistants make more money than people in the mail room. It’s common knowledge. And insurance is something you buy to protect yourself, whether it be for your auto, your home, your health, your life. Whatever. In fact, the least bought insurance, but also the most important insurance, is LIFE INSURANCE and there are so many fools out there without it. But that’s another story for another time. But just because this guy was the CEO of an insurance company that many may not like is not a reason for him to be killed.

I work for an insurance company. It isn’t a health insurance company but it is an insurance company. And I can assure you that there are many customers who probably despise the company, many of the employees, the CEO and the President of the company for whatever reason. And that’s their choice. But it isn’t their choice to kill any of them because they don’t like how their claim was handled or feel that their premiums are too high.

This classic, recorded in 1958 by then 13-year-old Brenda Lee, and written by Johnny Marks, has become a staple of Christmas. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without it. What I like most about it is that it’s a true “feel good” song. Although it’s been covered by countless artists, Brenda Lee’s version, in my opinion, is by far the best.

In 2019 Lee’s recording of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and in 2023 Lee released a music video for the song and became the oldest artist ever to top the Hot 100 at both age 78 and79 when the song topped the charts in December of that year.

The song was also notably featured in the movie “Home Alone”.