And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from the U.S. Treasury, that all of America should go shopping. 2 (And this decree was first made when leading economic indicators dipped to their lowest point.) 3 And each went out to his own mall.

4 And a Christian also went up from his suburban home to the city with its many malls because he wanted to prove he was from the household of prosperity. 5 And with him was his wife, who was great with economic worry. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, they found many expensive presents, pudgy-faced dolls, trucks that turn into robots, and a various assortment of video games. 7 And the woman wrote checks for those they could afford and charged the rest on many different kinds of plastic cards; she wrapped them in bright paper and laid them in the garage; for there was no room for them in her closet.

8 And there were in the same country children keeping watch over there stockings by night. 9 And lo, Santa Claus came upon them; and they were sore afraid (expecting to see the special effects they had seen in the movies), 10 And Santa said unto them, "Fear not; for I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people who can afford this holiday. 11 For unto you will be given this day, in your suburban home, great feasts of turkey, dressing, and cake -- and many presents. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find the presents, wrapped in bright paper, lying beneath an artificial tree adorned with tinsel, colored balls, and lights."

13 And suddenly there was with Santa Claus a multitude of relatives and friends praising one another and saying, 14 "Glory to you for getting me this gift; it's just what I wanted."

15 And it came to pass, as the friends and relatives were gone away into their own homes, the parents said to one another, 16 "I sure am glad that's over. What a mess! I'm too tired to pick it up now. Let's go to bed and pick it up tomorrow." 17 And when they had said this, they remembered the statements that had been told to them by the storekeepers: "Christmas comes only once a year." 18 And they that heard it wondered at those things that were sold to them by the storekeepers. 19 But the children treasured all their things in their hearts, hoarding their toys from each other. 20 And the parents, after a drink, went to bed, glorifying and praising each other for all the bargains they had found in the stores.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.