- [Narrator] Santa Claus.
He delivers billions of toys to children all over the world,
and he does it all in a single day.
Every year without fail, Santa delivers.
How does he do it?
Well, statistics would tell us that it must be magic,
or superpowers, or advanced science and technology,
or perhaps a little bit of each.
Let's look at some numbers so we can try and understand
what Santa faces each Christmas.
Christmas is only 24 hours long,
over 1.5 billion children on earth.
First let's load up the sleigh.
Now, not every kid gets gifts on Christmas.
Those that end up on the naughty list, get a lump of coal.
Let's assume 4% of all kids end up on the naughty list.
One in 25 will get coal.
That's 60 million lumps of coal.
96% of kids, or 1.44 million will get toys.
Let's assume each kid gets two toys from Santa.
If each of the 2.88 billion toys weighs about two pounds
and each lump of coal weighs one pound,
that means Santa's sack will need to hold
about 5.8 billion pounds.
Santa must have some superpowers to carry that bag.
And assuming Santa has eight reindeer,
each reindeer is responsible for hauling 1/8 of that weight.
That's about 727.5 million pounds per reindeer.
If Rudolph joins them, that brings the total load
to 646.7 million pounds per reindeer.
Those are some really strong reindeer.
But they're not just strong, they're fast.
As Santa zigzags from one kid's home to the next,
the miles add up quickly.
Let's take a wild guess and say that kids live
an average of 0.1 miles apart.
That means Santa and his reindeer would need to travel
150 million miles in 24 hours.
And that means the sleigh is averaging a speed
of about 6.25 million miles per hour,
or 1,736 miles per second.
Mind you, the fastest space probes that travel
deep into space only travel about 10 miles per second.
Santa leaves them in the dust.
And of course, Santa doesn't do this alone.
His elves produce those toys, 2.88 billion toys.
Minus weekends, holidays, and vacations
those elves probably work about 240 days per year.
That means the elves are producing 12 million gifts per day.
Now, no one knows exactly how many elves
are on Santa's manufacturing team,
but Santa experts have estimated it's about 20,000 elves.
That means each elf makes about 600 gifts per day.
Wow!
Making Christmas happen takes a lot of energy.
Thankfully, kids like to leave Santa cookies and milk.
Let's say that the average global household
has about two kids.
That means Santa stops at 750 million homes.
If he eats only one cookie and drinks three ounces
of milk at each stop,
Santa is consuming about 300 calories per home.
So that's about 225 billion calories in a 24 hour period.
Magical powers, superhuman strength, cosmic speed,
a giant belly, and a loving heart.
Statistics help us understand the greatness of Santa.