Paws for Reflection

At Christmas time, we love to sing, don’t we? One of the first songs I think of is “Up on the Housetop”.  I never get much beyond the first line: “Up on the housetop reindeer…”, ‘cause my mind goes racing trying to determine if it’s “reindeer paws”, “reindeer pause”, or “reindeer pa’s”. I’ve ruled out the third one – there is evidence the reindeer are all male, but I’ve found no concrete evidence that they all had children. So the third option is out, I think.

Regarding the first two options, yeah, I think the reindeer do indeed pause, which would put them on their paws. That’s their landing gear. You hear the paws on the roof but then the noise stops, which would be the pause.

Whose paw is on first?