Those poor reindeer

I've been thinking about holiday traditions (now who on earth does that around Christmas?). It occurred to me that my siblings and I were awful cruel as children, although we hope it was unwitting. For years, every Christmas eve, we would leave out a plate of cookies for Santa. One year, however, it occurred to us that Santa wasn't the one doing all the work. Those poor reindeer had to carry a sleigh around, while flying, and Santa just kept getting fatter as the night went on! Why aren't we feeding them instead? So, in addition to Santa's cookies (can't risk offending the big guy), we would leave 9 bowls of carrots out, one for each reindeer, with the expectation that they would have disappeared by the time we awoke. Next morning, sure enough, the cookies would be all but gone, as well as the carrots. Some of the bowls had the remains of a few of the vegetables, suggesting that they left in a hurry and couldn't quite finish. Clearly, the reindeer appreciated our thoughtfulness. Sometimes Santa even left a note thanking us for feeding his poor steeds.
The question is, did my parents actually eat all those carrots? Because if so, dang it. I'm sorry. Like I said, we were cruel children.


(my guess is they just went back in the fridge)

*image from schlerplotti.typepad.com, but they got it from somewhere, which got it from somewhere, which got it from somewhere...which got it from the movie . Man, I love that flick.