Santa's Sleigh and Reindeer: Free Printable PDF Sheet

Santa's Sleigh & Reindeer: History & Fun Facts

Quick Facts

• The flying reindeer first appeared in the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" — Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen.
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in 1939 by Robert L. May, a copywriter at Montgomery Ward, as a holiday giveaway booklet.
• The song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949 and became one of the best-selling singles of all time.
• Real reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) can run at speeds up to 50 miles per hour and are the only deer species in which females also grow antlers.
• The names Donner and Blitzen come from the German words for thunder and lightning.
• According to NORAD, Santa's sleigh travels approximately 8,000 kilometers per second on Christmas Eve to reach all children.

The Poem That Started Everything

Before 1823, no one had written about Santa Claus traveling by sleigh through the sky pulled by flying reindeer. That year, a poem titled "A Visit from St. Nicholas" appeared anonymously in a New York newspaper, and it changed Christmas storytelling permanently. The poem introduced readers to Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen — eight reindeer with names suggesting speed, elegance, and power. It described a sleigh landing on a rooftop, reindeer pawing at the shingles, and a jolly visitor dropping down a chimney with a sack full of toys. The poem was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, though some scholars believe another writer named Henry Livingston Jr. may have written it. Whoever the author was, the poem planted the image of the airborne sleigh so firmly in the American imagination that it never left.

Rudolph, the ninth and most famous reindeer, arrived more than a century later. Robert L. May was a copywriter working at Montgomery Ward department stores in Chicago when he wrote a short illustrated booklet called "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in 1939. The store gave away 2.4 million copies that first year. May gave the story to his brother-in-law Johnny Marks, who turned it into a song. Gene Autry recorded the song in 1949, and it became one of the best-selling singles in music history. The 1964 Rankin/Bass stop-motion television special introduced Rudolph to television audiences and has been broadcast every year since, making it the longest-running holiday TV special in American broadcasting history.

Real Reindeer

Real reindeer, known scientifically as Rangifer tarandus, are among the most cold-adapted large mammals on Earth. They live in the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America, Europe, and Asia, including Scandinavia — the part of the world most closely associated with Santa's North Pole home. Unlike most deer species, both male and female reindeer grow antlers, though males shed theirs in early winter while females keep theirs through December. This means that on Christmas Eve, according to traditional timelines, the famous nine reindeer would all be female. Reindeer have broad, concave hooves that act like snowshoes on soft snow and ice, making them perfectly suited to the kind of terrain one might imagine surrounding Santa's workshop.