How Many Reindeer Would Have To Run Over Grandma To Off Her?

Most Christmas songs & carols are about happy things — snowmen, Santa Claus, jingling bells. And if there’s anything objectionable in them, it’s usually subtle, like the much-debated lyrics of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside." There is, however, one standout Christmas standard that is unapologetically dark and about as un-subtle as you can get. I’m talking, of course, about the 1979 novelty Christmas hit “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” by Elmo & Patsy.

While you’ve most likely heard it, the song tells the story of an eggnog-drunk grandmother who wanders home during a blizzard on Christmas Eve. By Christmas morning, she’s found trampled to death, reindeer hoofprints scattered around her likely mangled body. Which raises an obvious question: Could a reindeer actually kill an elderly woman — and if so, how many would it take?

To get an answer, I wanted to talk to a reindeer rancher, but not just any reindeer rancher you’d pass on the street. I wanted a reindeer rancher who has been through it — who looked a reindeer in the eye as it tried to mow him down and lived to tell the tale. So I reached out to Randy Espe from Whispering Pines Reindeer Ranch in Shabbona, Illinois, who told me, “I’ve been run over and hospitalized by a reindeer. I sang that song all the way to my hospital bed.”

Espe notes that reindeer can be gentle creatures. “Most of them are like dogs or pets,” he says. “They're friendly. We've had bottle-babies we’ve raised in our house.” But during the breeding season, reindeer can be tough to control. And four years ago, Espe found himself stuck between two fighting reindeer at the tail-end of the breeding season. 

“The 400-pound bull charged me and threw me into a fence,” Espe recalls. “Then he got on top of me and I grabbed his antlers while he swung me back and forth like a ragdoll.” Ultimately, two of Espe’s son-in-laws came to his rescue and brought him to the hospital, where they learned he had a dislocated collarbone and total AC separation. Had his son-in-laws not been there, however, he easily could have died.

Relating his own experience to that of the fictional eggnog-slurping grandmother, Espe breaks it down plainly: “For six-month-old juveniles, it might take five or six to do any real harm. They're anywhere from 150 to 175 pounds. When they run up on me, they wrap their antlers around my leg and shake their head. They’ll even try to stick their antlers up my butt — you’re more likely to get an enema from a yearling bull than anything else. But one adult bull? It would have no problem taking out Grandma on its own.”