CALCULATING CHRISTMAS

By JESSE BARRINGER

As the sky grows dim, and eyes shrink shut, the clouds tear away at the atmosphere and snow drifts across the moonlit sky. Billions of children and adults across the globe settle in for an anxious Christmas Eve rest. 

JESSE BARRINGER FOR THE WIZARD WEEKLY

As the cold air breathes, and the flaking snow piles upon the ground, millions of children around the world lay dreaming of the gifts and goodies that sit in Santa’s satchel. The night passes over as quickly as it grows in, and the morning sun rises up on the white horizon, glistening upon the twinkling snow. The sun crawls up and cracks through the windows of children’s bedrooms all over the world. Eyes blast open all across the globe, feet pound down the stairs in every country, and smiles gleam upon the faces of every boy and girl’s house on the planet. All of their gifts are delivered in tact, on time, and from yours truly...Santa Claus.

Only, how is this particular scenario a possible one? How is the perception of a certain festive individual delivering multiple gifts to every good girl and boy that celebrates Christmas, a plausible and factual one from so many individuals across the globe? That, is exactly what we’re going to figure out.

The most doubtful part of the Christmas Eve Journey is, in fact, the destination. The end result. Every girl and boy on earth getting a Christmas present from Santa. If you can prove the possibility of that happening, you can prove the possibility of the big red man himself. 

In order to corroborate the legend of the jolly old Saint Nick and his Christmas Eve duties, we’re going to have to make a few assumptions, and do a little math.  To do that, we need to answer a few statistical questions.

How many houses need to be delivered to on Christmas Eve?Many people believe that Santa, quite literally, needs to stop by every single household on our blue and green faced planet to deliver presents. In reality, not every household on our blue and green faced planet celebrates Christmas. According to research done by Buzzfeed Video, only about 132 million homes on Earth celebrate Christmas.  That’s still a lot, though, so let’s keep going.

How much time does Santa Claus actually have to do it?  As most people know, our planet runs on multiple time zones. Meaning, we don’t all get up at the same time in the morning, or go to bed the same time at night. You’d think this would put the big S at a disadvantage, when it actually gives him more time than we realize. A “physicist in the Geography department at the university of Exeter” calculated in an article written by EurekAlert.com, that “Santa and his reindeer would have to travel at about 10 million kilometers per hour to deliver presents to every child expected to celebrate Christmas in 31 hours (taking into account world time zones).” That gives Santa seven more hours than we are given on our 24 hour daily basis. This also means that the little Saint Nick would need to deliver to 1,178 houses a second according to Buzzfeed Video. That's less than “a fraction (1/1,000) of a millisecond to climb down the chimney, fill the stockings, eat the cookies, and climb back up.” You’d think doing this for millions of kids house after house would get deathly tiring to say the least. This leads me into my next question. 

How far, how many, and how so?  Kind of a vague question, but there’s a lot to answer. The geographical journey comes to a whopping “175 million zig zag miles." This means he’d have to travel at a speed of around 7,800 times the speed of sound. As stated earlier from information provided by Buzzfeed Video, there are 132 million homes to deliver to on Christmas Eve. There are just about “700 million” (EurekAlert.com), Christian children under the age of 14 who celebrate Christmas and expect presents from Santa every year. Keep in mind, a fraction of those kids are likely on the naughty list and, therefore, do not receive gifts from Santa, unless you count lumps of coal.  So, “assuming every good kid get’s a toy weighing two pounds, Santa’s sleigh would weigh over 660 million pounds” (Buzzfeed Video).  

This presents the question, how is it so that these millions of pounds are carried on the back of an old, out of shape man, across the entire planet?  A theory presented by Buzzfeed Video suggests this could be possible with “a nano toy maker." The way it works is “similar to DNA that grows organs cell by cell, Santa’s nano toy maker could transform chimney soot and other carbons, into gifts." After all of these questions, there’s really only one that matters.

So, how is all of this possible?  You could sit here all day with fact after fact and question after question laid out and answered for you.  A carefully crafted calculated answer might satisfy that particular mystery, but it will only raise more red flags, followed by more curious questions. To answer how anything is possible is, yet, just another explanation to justify something’s own existence.  At a certain point, you have to take a stand.  You have to make a decision. 

So I ask you, after all the facts and numbers have been presented, can one man achieve the seemingly impossible task of getting gifts to millions in one night? The choice is yours.