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

There are 2 billion children (persons under 1 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 and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits/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 and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to do what most of us do at lease once every 31 hours, plus eating etc. So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles/second. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/hour.

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and 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 300lb. 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 and 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.

A Merry Christmas to one and all!!

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”

–Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”

–Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

–William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"

—Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”

–Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

–Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”

–Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend... if you have one.”

–George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one.”

–Winston Churchill’s response to George Bernard Shaw

“I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.”

–Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”

–John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”

–Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”

–Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”

–Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.”

–Walter Kerr

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”

–Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”

–Mae West

“Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee!”

–Lady Astor to Winston Churchill at a dinner party

“Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it!”

–Winston Churchill’s response to Lady Astor

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."

—Moses Hadas

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."

—Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."

—Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."

—Thomas Brackett Reed

"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them."

—James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."

—Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."

—Forrest Tucker

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any one I know."

—Abraham Lincoln

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."

—Mae West

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts — for support rather than illumination."

—Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."

—Billy Wilder

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”

–Oscar Wilde

"You, Mr. Wilkes, will die either of the pox or on the gallows."

–The Earl of Sandwich

"That depends, my lord, whether I embrace your mistress or your principles."

–John Wilkes's response to The Earl of Sandwich

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."

—Winston Churchill

Stage #1 -- Smart

This is when you suddenly become an expert on every subject. You
know all and greatly wish to express this knowledge to anyone who
will listen. At this stage you are also always right. And of course
the person you are talking with is very wrong. You will talk for
hours trying to convince someone that you are right. This makes for an
interesting argument when both parties are "smart". Two people talking,
in fact, arguing about a subject neither one really knows anything
about, but are convinced that they are they complete authority on the
subject makes for great entertainment for those get the opportunity to
listen in.

Stage #2 -- Handsome/Pretty

This is when you are convinced that you are the best looking person in
the entire room and everyone is looking at you. You begin to wink at
perfect strangers and ask them to dance because of course they had been
admiring you the whole evening. You are the center of attention, and all
eyes are directed at you because you are the most beautiful thing on the
face of the earth. Now keep in mind that you are still smart, so you can
talk to this person who has been admiring you about any and all subjects
under the sun.

Stage #3 -- Rich

This is when you suddenly become the richest person in the world. You can
buy drinks for the entire bar and put it on your bill because you surely
have an armored truck full of your money parked behind the bar. You can
also make bets in this stage. Now of course you still know all, so you
will always win all your bets. And you have no concern for how much
money you bet because you have all the money in the world. You will also
begin to buy drinks for all the people in the bar who are admiring you
because you are now the smartest, prettiest, and richest person on the
face of the earth.

Stage #4 -- Bulletproof

You can now pick fights with the people you have been betting money with
because you cannot be hurt by anything. At this point you would go up to
the boyfriend of the woman who had been admiring your beautiful self
all evening and challenge him to a battle of wits for money. You have no
worry about losing this battle of wits because you know all, have all
the money to cover this bet, and you obviously win a fight that might
erupt if he looses.

Stage #5 -- Invisible

This is the final stage of drunkenness. At this point you can do
absolutely anything because no one can see you. You can get up and dance
on a table; you can strip down to your underwear, to impress the people
who have been admiring you all evening, because the rest of the people
in the room cannot see you. You are also invisible to the person whom
you have picked a fight with earlier in the evening. You can walk through
the streets singing at the top of your lungs (because of course you are
still smart and know the tune perfectly) and no one will think anything
of it because they can't see you. All your social inhibitions are
gone. You can do anything, because no one will know.

And you certainly won't remember !