Tonnage

Santa carries a lot of weight in more ways than one. He influences children because he rewards them for good behavior. But he also carries, or at least hefts, a lot of poundage. I asked him to estimate how many pounds he picked up in the course of a season.

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That requires a little figuring. Speaking from experience I would say that I actually pick up approximately one third of the children that come to see me. I’m pretty good at judging weight and when a child reaches twenty-five pounds I stop picking them up. I’ll hug them but I won’t pick them up. Now let’s assume that the average weight of a child at birth is five pounds. That means that the average weight of a child that I will pick up is fifteen pounds.

Once again speaking from experience, I probably average about a minute and a half with each child. Some of them are so in awe of me they won’t say anything. That makes for a short visit. Others have lists that seem to never end. So I’d say a minute and a half is a good estimate of the time spent with each child.

Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November. This means that the minimum number of days between thanksgiving and Christmas will be twenty-six and the maximum number of days will be thirty-two. The average length of the season therefore will be twenty-nine days.

Normally parents would not think of taking their child to see Santa earlier than nine A.M. nor later than nine P.M.

Now lets put these numbers together.

A twelve-hour day translates into 720 minutes.

With a visit averaging 1.5 minutes I am able to make contact with 480 children in the course of twelve hours

Since there are an average of twenty-nine days in a season I will be able to see 13,920 children in the course of an average Christmas season.

If I pick up roughly one third of them I will be picking up plus or minus 4,640 children.

At an average weigh of 15 pound per child that means I will pick up 69,600 pounds or 34.8 tons of children.

Mind you, that is the estimate for one location, open for only twelve hours per day for only twenty-nine days. The real figures are much higher. Because of globalization I am actually on stage 24 hours a day for an average of twenty-nine days per year in thousand of stores, malls and Shopping centers through out the world.

Is it any wonder I have hundreds of alter egos?

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I guess not. It tires me out just thinking about all that lifting.

I be in touch next month – after I’ve rested up.

Santa’s Friend

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