With December now upon us, bear a thought for just how busy Santa Claus will be on the night of Christmas Eve, and in the early hours of Christmas Day.
Every year he faces a logistics puzzle – how to deliver all the presents to all the children around the world who celebrate Christmas.
A study from a few years ago puts some figures on just how frantic his night is. Researchers at the University of Leicester calculated that there are some 715 million Christian boys and girls across the globe.
They then assumed an average of three children per household, which means that Father Christmas has to deliver to 238 million homes. This, in turn, requires Rudolf and the other reindeer to pull Santa’s sleigh at half the speed of light. That’s 336 billion mph (540 billion km/ph).
While Father Christmas is no doubt continuing his final preparations and limbering up, Christmas is, of course, also the busiest time of the year for retailers – none of us can sadly rely solely upon presents that are magically delivered via our chimneys.
The behemoth in the industry is Amazon, which throughout last year delivered 4.2 billion parcels in the US alone.
Image caption, Santa Claus, here putting on a brave face, will have his work cut out on Christmas Eve With December now upon us, bear a thought for just how busy Santa Claus will be on the night of Christmas Eve, and in the early hours of Christmas Day. […]
The tech helping shops – and Santa – deliver this Christmas
