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No known species of reindeer can fly.  But there are probably 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, & while most of these are insects & germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. But since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish & Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there's at least one 'good' child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due to the different time zones & the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. That is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has .001 second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh & move on to the next house.

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie & an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins & minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories.  Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000 / 3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 lb.), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) can pull 10 TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9, reindeer. We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them & create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within .00426 of a second. Meanwhile, Santa will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb. Santa, being very conservative in terms of guessing Santa's weight, would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force.

If Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

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#2:   ...Santa has his own problems:

One particular Christmas a long time ago, Santa was getting ready for his annual trip, but there were problems everywhere.

Four of his elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as quickly as the regular ones, so Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule.

Then, Mrs. Claus told him that her mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa out even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out, heaven knows where.

More stress.

When he began to load the sleigh, one of the boards cracked and the toy bag fell to the ground, scattering the toys.

Frustrated, Santa went back into the house for a cup of coffee and a shot of whisky. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered that the elves had hid the liquor and there was nothing to drink.  In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the coffee pot & it broke into hundreds of little pieces.

So he went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw it was made from; and, had left a puddle of stinky mouse-urine.

Just then, the doorbell rang and Santa cussed his way to the door.

He opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree. The angel said very cheerfully: "Merry Christmas, Santa! Isn't it just a lovely day?  I have this beautiful tree for you.  Where would you like me to put it?

Thus began the tradition of the little angel atop the Christmas tree.

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#3:  ...A Christmas Letter from Santa:

I was going to bring you all gifts for the 12 days of Christmas, but we've had some problems.

The 12 fiddlers fiddling have all come down with VD from fiddling with the 10 ladies dancing.

The 11 lords leaping have knocked up the 8 maids a-milking.

The 9 pipers piping have been arrested for doing weird things to the 7 swans a-swimming.

The 6 geese a-laying, 4 calling birds, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves and the partridge in a pear tree have me up to my sled runners in bird shit.

On top of all this Mrs. Claus is going through menopause and keeps all the windows open, even in this freezing weather. Eight of my reindeer are in heat, the elves have joined Gay Liberation & some people who can't read a calendar have scheduled Christmas for the 5th of January.

Maybe next year I will be able to get my act together & bring you the things YOU want.

This year I suggest you get your ass down to Wal-mart before everything is gone.

Sincerely,
Santa Claus

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