The Secrets of Santa Claus Revealed
The secrets of how the legendary Santa Claus delivers gifts to millions of children throughout the world from the land of perpetual snow in one night have been closely guarded throughout the years, but one scientist believes he has the answers.
Photo Jacob Windham
Also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, or simply “Santa,” he brings gifts and toys to good children on Christmas Eve, riding upon his sleigh pulled by 8 flying reindeer.
The toys and gifts are made at his home and a workshop where he creates them with the aid of magical elves or other supernatural beings, and according to Canada Post his home in the North Pole lies within Canadian jurisdiction in postal code H0H 0H0. Some say it’s actually an entire village, inhabited by his helpers surrounding his home and shop.
Photo Vanessa Pike-Russell
How Santa Delivers Presents
Every year Santa has the colossal task of delivering presents to millions of children across the world — all in time for Christmas Day, and all in just one night.
So just how does Santa manage to achieve this seemingly impossible feat? A scientist in the U.S. explains how this mammoth accomplishment could be performed.
Photo Matti Mattila
Dr. Larry Silverberg believes that Santa Claus is a technological genius. He explains how Santa manages this feat by exploiting the space time continuum. The scientist says that Santa understands that space stretches — you can stretch time and compress space, in essence giving him 6 Santa months to deliver the presents.
Photo Matti Mattila
Dr. Silverberg is a professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering, and has studied the Santa phenomenon in great depth.
Contrary to popular belief, he claims that his research shows that Santa does not carry presents for each child in his sleigh.
“We believe that he uses nanotechnology to grow the presents under the tree, and has figured out how to turn irreversible thermodemic processes into reversible ones. So he really starts with soot and natural materials, puts them under the tree, and grows them in a reverse process to create the presents, wrapping it all.” says Silverberg.
Photo Matti Mattila
Then there’s the age-old question that Santa has to address every year — which children have been naughty, and which ones have been nice.
Dr. Silverberg says his methods are far more sophisticated than simply basing it on the sack loads of mail he receives.
“Before the entire process begins, Santa Claus listens to children’s thoughts. We believe the way he does this is by using large antennas that are miles long in the snow up at the North Pole.” Silverberg explains.
Santa’s trip on Christmas Eve takes in all continents and all time zones. Silverberg says that his sleigh is equipped with an onboard guidance system, and his reindeer are genetically bred to fly, balance on rooftops, and see in the dark.
The professor is convinced his revelations are of crucial importance to future research on Santa — studies that can only enhance the lives of children everywhere.
Photo Matti Mattila
Track Santa on Christmas Eve
He can fly, but he can’t hide. NORAD, the joint Canadian-American military organization responsible for aerospace and maritime defense, regularly reports tracking Santa Claus on his magical flight around the world every year.
In addition to tracking Santa on the NORAD Tracks Santa homepage, you can also track his flight in Google Earth.
Santa Cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras pre-positioned at many locations around the world only on Christmas Eve. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world. Visit their website on December 24th to see Santa fly!
World Record of Santas
More than 14,000 people dressed as Santa Clauses paraded in the city of Porto in Portugal on December 14th to try to set a new world record for the largest gathering of Santas and raise money for charity.
14,000 Santa Clauses ‘break’ world record in Portugal. Photo Reuters
According to the Guinness World Records, the previous world record for the largest gathering of Santas was set last year in Derry City, Northern Ireland, where a total of 12,965 people dressed up as Santa or Santa’s helpers.
Santa Claus Around the World
Saint Nicholas of Myra is the primary inspiration for the Christian figure of Santa Claus. He was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra in Lycia, a province of the Byzantine Anatolia, now in Turkey. Nicholas was famous for his generous secret gift-giving to the poor, but is now commonly identified with Santa Claus.
But each Nordic country claims Santa’s residence to be within their territory. In Denmark, he is said to live in Greenland near Uummannaq.
Sinterklaas — also called Sint-Nicolaas in Dutch and Saint Nicolas in French — is the traditional holiday figure in the Netherlands and Belgium, celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas’ eve on December 5th or, in Belgium, on the morning of December 6th. The feast celebrates the name day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of, among other things, children.
Sinterklaas arrival. Photo Ricardo Martins
It’s also celebrated to a lesser extent in parts of France as well as in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and in the town of Trieste and in Eastern Friuli in Italy. Many Roman Catholics of Alsatian and Lotharingian descent in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. also celebrate “St. Nicholas Day” the morning of December 6th. The traditions differ from country to country, even between Belgium and the Netherlands.
In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas’ Eve on December 5th is the chief occasion for gift-giving. The evening is called sinterklaasavond or pakjesavond (”presents’ evening”). Traditionally, presents are ingeniously wrapped, and therefore called surprises. Presents are also traditionally accompanied by a poem from Saint Nicholas.
In Sweden, the town of Mora has a themepark named Tomteland. The national postal terminal in Tomteboda in Stockholm receives childrens’ letters for Santa.
Saint Nicholas. Photo Gaby Kooiman
The Finnish town Rovaniemi has long been known in Finland as Father Christmas’ home, and has a theme park called Santa Claus Village.
In the United Kingdom and Europe, his depiction is often identical to the American Santa, but he is commonly called Father Christmas.
In the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Germany, he is still portrayed as a bearded bishop in canonical robes.
Photo Tommy and Georgie
Odin was sometimes recorded, at the native Germanic holiday of Yule, as leading a great hunting party through the sky. Two books from Iceland, the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, describe Odin as riding an 8-legged horse named Sleipnir that could leap great distances, with comparisons to Santa Claus’s reindeer.
According to Phyllis Siefker, children would place their boots filled with carrots, straw, or sugar near the chimney for Odin’s flying horse Sleipnir to eat. Odin rewarded them for their kindness by replacing the food with gifts or candy. This practice survived in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands became associated with Saint Nicholas and can still be seen in the modern practice of hanging stockings at the chimney.
This practice in turn came to the U.S. through the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in the 17th century, and evolved into the hanging of socks or stockings at the fireplace.
In Kyrgyzstan, a mountain peak was named after Santa Claus, after a Swedish company had suggested the location be a more efficient starting place than Lapland for present-delivering journeys all over the world. 2008 was officially declared the Year of Santa Claus in the country.
Photo FaceMePLS
Santa’s Traditional Attire
Santa wasn’t always dressed in red and white. While the jolly Saint Nicholas was originally portrayed wearing bishop’s robes, in modern times, Santa Claus is generally depicted as a plump, jolly, white-bearded man wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots which became popular in the U.S. in the 19th century.
Old Fashioned or European-Style Santa Suit.
Father Christmas dates back at least as far as the 17th century in Britain, and pictures of him survive from that era, portraying him as a well-nourished bearded man dressed in a long, green, fur-lined robe.
In Washington Irving’s History of New York in 1809, Sinterklaas was Americanized into “Santa Claus” but lost his bishop’s apparel, and was at first pictured as a thick-bellied Dutch sailor with a pipe in a green winter coat.
In the poem, “The Night Before Christmas,” Santa is established as a heavyset man with 8 reindeer, which were named for the first time.
In some images of the early 20th century, Santa was depicted as personally making his toys by hand in a small workshop like a craftsman. Eventually he enlisted the aid of many elves to make the toys, but they were still handmade by each individual elf working in the traditional manner.
Santa and Mrs. Claus. Photo Emery Way
The Night Before Christmas
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads,
And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap –
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow
Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer and Vixen,
“On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem.”
“To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
“Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys — and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes — how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry.
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight –
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”
A Mr. Bean Christmas
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas filled with joy, cheer, good tidings, and happiness.
Sources: Telegraph and Wikipedia
Interesting stories about Santa! Thank you so much to tell us such secrets in this special day!
Merry Christmas!
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Is that first part, the scientific part, for real? Haha, what a waste of research dollars! haha
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Thanks for the lesson I don’t know for sure but i think Santas red outfit was designed by Coke Cola
The title emphasize the reality of Santa Claus-Really catch my attention. But as I finished reading, wheeeww, I thought Santa really distributes gifts around the globe in just one night or the six months allowance (as written). But anyway, real or not, the important thing is, he brings joy and hope to our young and young-at-hearts.
I love Sinterklaas on a horse as I prefer seeing Santa Claus from a distance hehe
Merry Christmas to you and L, Deb.. Hope you were a good girl this year ;P
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Merry Xmas iwalk
I believe that it was mainly just in fun Tom
I’m impressed with your knowledge about this, Wayne. I did read that it was a misnomer that Coca-Cola was responsible for the red and white attire. I’ll find it and copy it here as it was written in Wikipedia. Bear in mind that info is not always 100% accurate on Wikipedia.
“Images of Santa Claus were further popularized through Haddon Sundblom’s depiction of him for The Coca-Cola Company’s Christmas advertising in the 1930s. The popularity of the image spawned urban legends that Santa Claus was in fact invented by Coca-Cola or that Santa wears red and white because they are the Coca-Cola colors. In reality, Coca-Cola was not the first soft drink company to utilize the modern image of Santa Claus in its advertising – White Rock Beverages used Santa to sell mineral water in 1915 and then in advertisements for its ginger ale in 1923. Furthermore, the massive campaign by Coca-Cola simply popularized the depiction of Santa as wearing red and white, in contrast to the variety of colours he wore prior to that campaign; red and white was originally given by Nast.”
Thanks Pearl, and Merry Xmas to you and your family too, my dear friend
Well the question as to whether or not I’ve been a good girl this year is still up for debate 
Interesting stories about Santa! Thank you so much to tell us such secrets.
Thanks for the lesson I don’t know for sure but I think Santas red outfit was designed by Coke Cola!
Happy holidays everyone, and thanks for some of these stories.
Merry Christmas Deborah!!!
and what a perfectly wonderful post to celebrate with…
hope your day was wonderful and that your New Year is fab
xxxxoooooo Kim
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Yeah this was a great post to celebrate Christmas.
But Merry Christmas Deborah, hope you have a great New Year as well. But I also recommend checking out http://www.knrdesigns.com I think they could help you out a lot.
Deborah, I’ve watched the “Mr. Bean X’mas” for over 20 times, but I just can’t hold back and LMAO with his act…lol
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kyahaha.. is that true?? do you know where’s the real Santa?
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This was an amusing post. I love the idea of Santa using time travel to get stuff done.
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Very cool stories on Santa… Thanks for sharing
I think Santa Claus is the world’s richest man. I mean, he’s going around the world every year for the past few centuries, giving out gifts that are big and small, to everyone.
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It’s amazing what people think of. I guess we can expect someone to try to beat the record soon.
Merry Christmas . All the best for 2009.
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Wonderful description of the history and secrets of Santa Claus. He is indeed magical! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
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So long as children keep believing in Santa, Father Christmas, Pere Noel, whoever, there will be magic in Christmas. And it’s that children’s open acceptance in the magic that makes this time of year so wonderful for us oldies.
Deborah, you’ve done a fantastic year – please keep it going and best regards for the coming year; may it be a productive, memorable and peaceful one for you and yours.
ps. I stopped believing in the tooth fairy and Santa about 100 years ago but the grandchildren keep it all alive
What an interesting article and revelation about Christmas. May god bless you.
I’m always fascinated by Santa Claus and Christmas stories, reminds me the feeling of being a kid again.
Happy holidays everyone.
awesome pictures buddy. santa would be proud of u.
I love some kind of santa picture. Happy holiday for you.
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I have posted this nice content at here :
http://www.wikiplugs.com/story.php?title=the-secrets-of-santa-claus-revealed
Thanks
happy new year… GBU
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Happy New Year – I see you are still in holiday.
When do you come back? We already miss you!
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Thanks to all, I hope that you’ve had a wonderful holiday season
Thanks for your wonderful wishes Kim, and the lovely e-card that you sent for New Year’s
I hope that you’ve received my reply.
Hehehe, glad you enjoyed Mr. Bean, Wilson
He’s one of my faves and although the video has been around for a long time, it never fails to give me a good laugh 
Indr, it’s all a matter of perspective as to who the real Santa is
Santa’s use of time travel is certainly an interesting concept, Gabriel
Thanks Gorge, all the best to you and yours in 2009
Thanks, Happy New Year to you too, Stephanie
The magic of Christmas is a very special thing when it comes to children, Robin
Thanks for your kind words. I do have many interesting topics in mind for the new year, I hope that you will all enjoy them. All the best to you and your family in 2009. Gasp! Did I read that right? There is no tooth fairy? Say it ain’t so!
Thank you Cindy. Blessings to you too in 2009
Thanks Kevin, I’m glad that you enjoyed it
Thanks Aha, Happy New Year to you too
Awww, thanks Mig
Happy New Year to you too! While I have been MIA over the holidays, it hasn’t been much of a vacation 
Between business, Christmas with company, and renovations going on here, it’s been rather chaotic 
I’m hoping that things will begin to get back to normal by tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to the break, I’m absolutely exhausted 
Interesting stories about Santa! Thank you so much to tell us such secrets.
That’s a real nice story about santa. Really liked to read that stuff. Great post.
It has been revealed how santa distributes gifts to the members on the Christmas eve…Thanks for the updates which makes fun and joy out of it..
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Interesting article about santa!!! rock on!!
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Hmm!! Nice article about santa.. I love this article!!
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I enjoy reading your articles…
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That was a nice historical lesson on santa claus. I never knew he has been around for centuries.
It’s good, warm and kindly story. I like stories about Santa very… very much!
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I wish I was a kid again…and I am looking forward to December, nice story on Santa
copy&paste your articles,my blog
very thanks
Great Story – Thanks for sharing. Can’t get enough of the sweet old guy in the red suit.
This is great! It’s almost that time of year again. Here comes Santa Claus
Hah this is great. My favorite time of year, almost here again. Thanks for this article great read!
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Awesome information on Santa. I am great fan of SANTA and your information made me more aware of SANTA. Thanks a ton to this blog for making me learn more about my favorite SANTA.
I visited my niece last xmas 2008, she is now 13 yrs old. I was suprised on xmas eve, she prepared cookies, hot drink and a note for santa. told us to sleep early, Santa will visit and he is hungry cos he have many houses to go. wow… she still believe in Santa
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Santa teach kid to be a good person.so he /she can get a reward at the end..only two month santa will coming to this world again.
Interesting! I guess you did revealed the secrets of Santa.
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This one of the best Santa Clause articles I have ever read. Thank you.