FARMINGTON — It took a while Saturday before children and parents realized Maine’s only reindeer was just down the street from Santa and his sleigh.

Pony X-Press petting-zoo pro, Freeway, a 12-year-old female reindeer from Winslow, took all of the attention in stride when it finally came during the Christmas on Front Street celebration.

“She’s quite a sight,” Julia Ruddy of Stratton said. “We weren’t expecting a reindeer visit today.”

Ruddy and her husband, Robert, brought their two boys, Henry, 4, and Benjamin, 2, to the pen to check out the reindeer and her pen mate, a 13-year-old European spotted fallow deer named Baby.

Robert photographed the boys as they petted the fallow deer and posed at the pen outside Tammy Parsons’ Divine Inspirations store with the reindeer in the background.

“Cheese!” Henry and Benjamin said in unison, loudly drawing out the word while smiling.

Freeway nosed through snow in her pen and occasionally gazed up, wide-eyed at the growing crowd and Kendrick Charles’ horse-drawn wagon loaded with families, every time it passed by on Front Street.

But to the dismay of small children hoping to stroke her fur with outstretched arms, the antlered reindeer stayed toward the center of the enclosure.

Owner Ed Papsis stood nearby, educating people and children about the two deer. He said the only female deer with antlers are reindeer.

“She’s full-grown,” he said of Freeway. “Their normal life expectancy is 8 to 10 (years) and she’s 12.”

“What does she eat?” a parent asked.

Reindeer eat grass in the summertime and hay and a grain mixture in winter, but mostly dried corn, Papsis said.

“That’s their favorite,” he said.

As for fluids, Papsis said reindeer would rather eat snow than drink water.

“This is considered warm weather for her,” he said of the 28-degree Fahrenheit temperature. “In the summertime, even when she gets all white and sheds out, we have to give her a pool to play in. They’re built for 40 below.”

Papsis said he and Candis Veilleux got Freeway when she was four months old.

“The fallow deer, we got her when she was a day old and bottle-raised her, that’s why she’s so friendly,” he said. “But the reindeer was raised by her mother and we got her at four months old.”

He said the reindeer was at another zoo in Maine.

“They had a small herd and shortly after we got her, a disease went through and took out their herd,” Papsis said. “She’s the only one left, and the state being what they are, they won’t let any deer be imported, so she’s been the only one for about eight years now.”

When asked where they are found, Papsis said in northern Canada, Alaska and northern Scandinavia.

“This time of year, we’re busy with the reindeer, bringing her to schools and nursing homes and things like this,” he said.

After checking out the deer, the Ruddys and other parents helped their children roast marshmallows on a fire that Parsons started in a fire pit, while others sipped hot chocolate.

Earlier in the event, the Narrow Gauge Cinemas offered free showings of “Polar Express,” “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs2” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Santa and a few colorfully dressed elves posed for pictures with children at the sleigh parked on the patio at Stone Hearth Cafe, where hot chocolate and cookies were available until 3 p.m.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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