The big question:  Are Santa’s reindeer male or female?  As the joke goes, apparently all of his reindeer must be female because only women would be able to drag a fat man in a red suit all around the world in just one night and not get lost.  Okay, even my dad laughed at that one.

But maybe the joke isn’t that far off – well, at least as far as whether they are male or female.  According to the University of Alaska, older male reindeer start shedding their antlers in December but female reindeer keep theirs until they give birth in the spring.  So it’s likely that if Santa’s reindeer were males, they would have lost their antlers by Christmas.  But since most pictures are drawn with antlers on all of the reindeer, even though they have male names, it’s more likely that Santa’s reindeer were probably female reindeer.

Now, the bigger question.  Does it really matter?  No, but it makes for a good joke.