There are approximately 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, if we may assume that Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Jehovah's Witnesses, or Buddist religions, this reduces the workload on Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with at least one good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, jump out, go down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left out for him, get back up the chimney, jump in the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Which is why it's pretty much pointless to stay up and wait for him.

Speaking of Christmas ninja stuff, I did all my gift wrapping in my room, while my brother was in there, and I wrapped his gifts too. I don't think I'll tell him though, so I can do it again next year for ease of use.

-CF

If I'm not on tomorrow: Merry Christmas!

Quote of the Day: About the time we make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.