Ho Ho Ho! ‘Tis the season of goodwill and joy to all men. As I was singing a merry old carol and munching on my mince pie (Slimming World friendly, of course!) a little thought occurred to me. While we’re all wrapping presents, dancing to The Pogues and guzzling the Gluhwein, someone is about to have their busiest time of year…

Yes, old Saint Nick will be working wonders in his Lapland workshop, so I thought we’d take a minute to think of what he’ll be up to this festive season:

There are an estimated 2,106 million children under 18 in the world, an average of 2.5 children per household. This means poor old Santa has to make 842 million stops on Christmas Eve, he needs all those mince pies just to keep his strength up! His journey on the 24th December takes him a total of 221 million miles, all by ‘reindeer power’ alone. Not only that, he must travel in lightning speed, for he must travel between houses in 2/10,000th of a second, which means he needs to accelerate 12.19 million miles per second on each stop!

From 1st December you’ll be able to see what Santa is up to and how his journey will pan out, using the official NORAD website, which tracks Santa all round the world. For more info on where your presents are currently at, visit the site here!

P.S Thanks to Random Facts for the great statistics.