COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

Are you ready? Hope so. Only two days left, what with Christmas falling on the 25th this year. For the last few years, I’ve brought you the Official Certified Peter B. Christmas Gift Guide, like whether to go with the jewelry, the lingerie or the fruitcake, which can get complicated, except the answer is almost never the fruitcake.

But this year, I wanted to bring you something meaningful, something substantial, something that captured both the religious and the cultural significance of Christmas. Here’s what I came up with. Exactly where did Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer come from? Do you know? It’s interesting, sort of.

Most people think it all started with songwriter Johnny Marks’ 1949 hit, which was recorded as you know by the late Gene Autry, famous singing cowboy and owner of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

People went bananas for both the song, which sold 2 million copies that year alone, and for Rudolph, who became a lovable icon of Christmas everywhere.

There have been a thousand treatments of the Rudolph’s trials and tribulations over the years — books, movies, television specials, most famously the 1964 animated version narrated by Burl Ives, which still pops up every year.

Is that it? Is that the whole story? Of course not. If it were, we’d be back to the fruitcake. Keep songwriter Johnny Marks’ name handy though. We’ll get back to him.

It’s 1939, Chicago, at the corporate offices of retail giant Montgomery Ward. The big bosses at Wards want a promotional gimmick for Christmas — a giveaway for kids, which always works.

A Ward’s copywriter named Robert May, all of 34 years old, gets the nod. The assignment put May on full buzz because his real passion was writing children’s stories in verse.

Within days he comes up with a story about a reindeer that everyone hassled and who didn’t get to play in any reindeer games because he had this weird thing going on with his nose, as in glowing red and really bright.

May calls it “The Red-nosed Reindeer,” then decides he needs an “R” name to go with it. He tries Rollo, which sounds too happy for a depressed little deer, then Reginald, which sounds too British. Eventually he settles on Rudolph — “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.”

Before he pitches it to anyone, May takes it home and tests it on a very small focus group that consists of his 4-year-old daughter, Barbara, who gives it a thumbs up and says, “I like it.”

But the next day, May’s boss is not so sure. He is worried about the red nose thing and thinks it suggests a reindeer who has been landing on bars a little too much and knocking a few back before the next stop — not a good Christmas image.

May grabs an illustrator from the Ward’s art department named Denver Gillen and drags him to the deer exhibit at the Lincoln Park zoo.

Gillen sketches like the wind and comes up with a “Rudolph” who was such a doll you just want to eat him up, glowing nose and all.

When May makes his pitch the next day, Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Ward say, “We are pleased.”

That Christmas alone, Ward stores across the country hand out 2.5 million free and fully illustrated copies of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer coloring books. Wartime paper rationing puts Rudolph on sabbatical until 1945, but a total of 6 million copies has gone out the door by Christmas 1946.

In 1947, Ward’s grants the license for the Rudolph story to May, by then a long-time, loyal employee. “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” is commercially printed and sold for the first time, and in 1948, a nine-minute cartoon of he Rudolph story appears in theaters across the country.

In 1949, May gets the idea for a song about Rudolph, mostly because his brother-in-law is a songwriter. His brother-in-law’s name? Johnny Marks. Johnny writes it, Gene sings it, and the rest is history.

By the way, Johnny Marks did well by Christmas and Christmas returned the favor. Marks also wrote “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” for Brenda Lee and “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” for Burl Ives.

And that is all you need to know, and then some, about Rudolph the RNR.

But I will leave you with a deeply touching Christmas story that was told to me personally by Diane Allen, wife of local rock-star, sort of, Rick Allen.

This week, Diane is in Neiman’s, doing a few Christmas chores. She sees a baby stroller beside a woman who is talking to a salesperson.

Being a baby lover, and who isn’t, Diane walks to the front of the stroller to see whether the baby is cute, very cute or none of the above.

When she gets a good look at the little guy she is more than a little surprised to find out that not only is the baby very well dressed, but it’s not a baby.

Sitting quietly in the stroller is a small dog, dressed in a Chanel suit, a pillbox hat, and designer sunglasses.

And yes the stroller is for the dog — there is no baby to be found.

Can you see a dog in his own stroller wearing a Chanel suit and designer sunglasses for Christmas anywhere but here? I don’t believe so.

Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel, Merry Christmas. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at ptrb4@aol.com.