Sorry, I should have noticed. It is related to the Santa Claus story. A very old Northern European winter solstice tradition where gifts given are said to come from Santa. He has a sled pulled by reindeer that fly and in a new twist the lead reindeer is named Rudolph and has a red nose that shines brightly.
So you grow up in this culture, you know the song and learn it is all a game to get children to behave in order to get presents.
Very Capitalist, no? So here is irony that in Soviet Russia the sounds are said in completely different meaning.

Such plays on words and meanings help English speakers deal with a language that seems more exceptions than rules. :)

The American Santa Claus is generally considered to have been the invention of Washington Irving and other early nineteenth-century New Yorkers, who wished to create a benign figure that might help calm down riotous Christmas celebrations and refocus them on the family. This new Santa Claus seems to have been largely inspired by the Dutch tradition of a gift-giving Sinterklaas, but it always was divergent from this tradition and was increasingly so over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. So, the American Santa is a largely secular visitor who arrives at Christmas, not the 6 December; who dresses in furs rather than a version of bishop's robes; who is rotund rather than thin; and who has a team of flying reindeer rather than a flying horse. At first his image was somewhat variable, but Thomas Nast's illustrations for Harper's Illustrated Weekly (1863-6) helped establish a figure who looks fairly close to the modern Santa. This figure was taken up by various advertisers, including Coca-Cola, with the result that he is now the 'standard' version of the Christmas visitor and has largely replaced the traditional Father Christmas in England.

http://www.arthuriana.co.uk/xmas/

Don't be so quick to assume that Russians don't know about Santa. They just call him Father Frost, and he comes on January 7th, but it's the same basic idea with the same historic origin. Rudolph came about in the 40's I think, so it's understandably not a part of Russian culture.

I was hoping for some shared parts and figured there would be some given where reindeer come from and where the Rus came from.

Do the Finns have the gift-giver with the sleigh? Is Father Frost a gift-giver?

Go to the link I posted Max.

"In Russia, under the influence of communism, St. Nicolas evolved into the secular Father Frost. He distributes toys to children on New Year's Eve."

I thought, Rudolf was an invention of Disney! :rolleyes:

This is Rudolph the Red, BTW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Sl%C3%A1nsk%C3%BD
Guess, he was on vacation in Moscow at that time.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...82/Slansky.jpg

Ye gads.............

:)

Leaves me wondering just what the words "knows rain" refer to.

There is no wondering when you face into the wind.:-P

Something more specific to Rudolph the Red is what I had in mind.