Strange Santa facts

We all know about Santa Claus: that jolly, round-bellied man who comes down our chimneys and brings us Christmas gifts every year. But did you know that he's based on a Norse god and is even richer than Bill Gates? Here are some strange but true facts about the legend himself!

His punishment depends on where you live

Most of us know that if you're naughty during the year, Santa will fill your stocking with lumps of coal, but this doesn't hold true all over the world. Bad kids from Poland can expect to find a stocking full of twigs, whilst little Hungarian troublemakers can look forward to an onion or a raw potato on Christmas Day. Probably the worst deal, though, is for naughty Dutch children - if they're not good, they'll be chased around by Santa's stick-wielding servant, Black Peter!

He's based on a saint and a god

Today's Santa Claus is an amalgamation of several historical figures, including 'Saint Nick', whose name we still use today. The real Saint Nicholas was a 4th century Greek bishop who did lots of good deeds, including giving dowries to women so that they wouldn't have to become prostitutes. When Europe became Christianised, this holy man merged with the Norse god Odin. He had a long beard and every winter he would travel on his eight-legged flying horse to give people gifts. Since then, Father Christmas has been through many more changes and his horse has become a team of flying reindeer!

He's the world's richest man

Santa Claus blows the rest of the world's super-rich out of the water. Forget the $73 billion fortune of the real richest man; Santa's net worth has been calculated as infinite! Well, he does make enough toys for every child in the world every single year, and then he just gives them away! In 2002, Santa's incalculable wealth meant he topped Forbes' list of the 15 richest fictional characters, but he was removed after hundreds of children wrote angry letters insisting that he is real.

He has to travel bone-crushingly fast

There's no doubt he has lot of homes to visit, but just how fast would Santa have to travel to make all his deliveries on time? Some festive mathematicians figured it out: to travel over 30,000,000 miles in 32 hours, those reindeer would have to pull the sleigh at about 1,800 miles per second. Unfortunately the jolly man wouldn't survive those speeds, but in 2008 the UK's leading car manufacturers teamed together to design some new sleighs that could help Santa get a little closer to his goal!

There are 20,000 of him

Clearly Santa has a lot to do in the run up to Christmas so he probably doesn't have time to visit every shopping centre in the world. So how many pretend Santas are out there in his place, helping children to get into the Christmas spirit? It's estimated that each year more than 20,000 actors don the red coat and beard in the USA alone, and the average Santa can expect to talk to over 10,000 children. That's a lot of Christmas wishes to grant!

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