Rudolph with his red nose may be the most famous reindeer of them all but legend has it that Santa Claus has many more to help him pull his sleigh all around the world at Christmas time. The idea of Father Christmas being aided by multiple reindeer to deliver presents to children comes from the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, which was written in 1823. Written by Clement Clarke Moore the poem, which is more commonly known as The Night Before Christmas because of its first line, describes the reindeer landing on the lawn outside a house ‘with a clatter’ and the ‘prancing and pawing of each little hoof’. It is also one of the first times that the reindeer are named… In A Visit from St. Nicholas, Santa Claus has eight reindeer who are named Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen. Santa addresses them by name in the poem saying: ‘Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!’ Rudolph, Santa’s famous ninth reindeer, wasn’t introduced to the sleigh pulling team until 1939, when Chicago-based copywriter Robert L. May wrote the well-known song Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and it became a popular festive tune. Now the names are set to the ones we are know and love!

Blitzen & Bernard love to travel. They love people and culture. So Santa assigned them the yearly duty of flying around the whole-wide-world to report on how different countries and cultures celebrate the season of Christmas. From Africa to New Zealand, Hawaii to London, Paris to Berlin in their five-part series Bernard helped Santa to understand some of the most interesting facts on how the holiday is celebrated around the globe. Did you know some children call Santa Claus "Pere Noel" and leave their shoes by the fireplace for special treats? Some leave a shoe on the window sill and wait to see if the elves have been each night on the build up to Christmas and placed a sweet treat inside for them to eat each morning? Or that some cultures eat sushi, fish, tamales and coconut pudding for Christmas dinner? Some believe if you are naughty you will receive a lump of coal not a lovely present? Bernard has told Santa all of the really neat traditions our friends around the world keep during this special time of year. Santa loves to hear all about their travels even though he misses them loads when they are gone.

INGREDIENTS: - 2/3 cup unpopped popcorn kernels - 2 cups granulated sugar - 2/3 cup half and half - 1 Tbsp light corn syrup - 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla - 6 drops red food coloring (or any other color you'd like) PROCEDURE: - Pop popcorn into a large bowl according to the manufacturer's directions. - Pour popped popcorn into two very large mixing bowls, set aside. - In a large saucepan whisk together sugar, half and half, corn syrup and salt. Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly until sugar has dissolved. - Heat mixture to 232 degrees, stirring occasionally. Immediately remove from heat and pour in vanilla and food coloring. Drizzle mixture over popped popcorn. - Gently stir popcorn until mixture is evenly coated and coating begins to dry (you'll notice the popcorn kernels separating). - Pour mixture onto waxed paper and allow to dry for about 20 minutes. Store in an airtight container

Well in todays society we are making this very easy for him and his army of helpers!! My secret source suggests a crack team of elite surrogates called the Santa Claws has been going into war zones the world over to deliver presents. “They drop down from the sky like the Claw in Toy Story.” He also suggests the amount of safe airspace has now got so small, the old guy is piloting a solution: a worldwide network of sleeper helpers in every community. The Send A Nice Toy Annually network, or SANTA: warm-hearted people who go about their business all year then go to work at Christmas using drones. “The sort of thing Amazon would kill for.” It makes sense. Drones are suddenly everywhere. There has been a huge rise in the number crashing in British prisons, carrying drugs and phones. Nine in October alone, according to reports. Nobody knows how many get through. But talking of dubious activity, what is Dark Santa? I’m afraid it’s bad news. The elves have gone rogue. My source suggests store Santa’s are being used for triage, working out who’s naughty or nice. Every visit to a grotto is a secret interrogation. They’ve set up a huge database – it’s easy to keep your servers cool in the Arctic circle – scanning Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram, hacking into the Pentagon, GCHQ even Facebook. You’d better watch out. You’d better think twice before posting that photo. His eyes are everywhere and he can see if you have been naughty or nice!

Within the laws of physics, how could one man and his sleigh pulled by reindeer deliver presents to the whole world on one night? “Actually, he has more than one night,” says Dr George. “The Orthodox calendar puts Christmas on a different day, in January, so he has two shots at this.” Then she drops a bombshell: “Not everybody believes in Santa!! Not everybody is good.” This comes from experience, having just given a public lecture on “The Science of Santa”. They like to engage people of all ages with science and technology at Keele, and themes like this help with that. “I don’t say: ‘This is exactly how it happens.’ I do say: ‘This theory exists. This offers a possibility.’” So.. let’s hear it… There are 2.2 billion children in the world according to Unicef; Dr George divides that in half (roughly two per household). Then she divides it again to reflect the proportion of families with value systems based on Christianity, which has been crucial to the evolution of the pagan figure of midwinter into Saint Nicholas, then into the fat, jolly chap in his red Coca-Cola outfit. “About one third of children believe and are good,” says Dr George with a dollop of parental generosity. That leaves Santa with 366 millionish visits to make. His journey around the world has been calculated at 7.5 million kilometres. “That’s to the Moon and back 10 times.” She divides the distance by 48 hours to calculate that he needs to move at 156,579 kilometres per hour. Scientists disagree about this – they really do, passionately; it’s one of their favourite things to do at Christmas – because some want to take into account the extra hours he can get by flying west across time zones. Still, he’s fast. America’s fastest fighter jet, unveiled earlier this year, will fly at Mach 5.1. By most calculations Santa’s sleigh has to reach at least Mach 100. The top speed of the average reindeer is just 15 miles per hour. Fortunately, these are not be the average reindeer. They can fly, for a start. If that seems impossible, consider this: according to a study in the journal PLOS Biology, there are 8.7 million species in the world and humans have yet to discover, categorise or name 86 per cent of them. So in theory, Rudolph could be out there. The heat generated by all that friction would vaporise him (although Dr George believes Rudolph is actually a female reindeer, because the males have all lost their antlers by this time of year) but the Norwegian astrophysicist Knut Jorgen Roed Odegaard provides the definitive word: “Santa obviously has an ion-shield of charged particles, held together by a magnetic field, surrounding his entire sleigh.” There should, however, be a continuous series of sonic booms as Santa breaks the sound barrier many times on Christmas Eve. “That would be deafening,” says Dr George. “It would wake all the children up.” Her solution has to do with a phenomenon observed in quantum physics, in which some particles appear to pass through energy barriers that should stop them. “Instead of burning up in the sky or having a magic key to get into everyone’s houses, he could be using quantum tunnelling.” The theory is related to Schrödinger’s cat, which is a hypothetical animal inside a box, with a poison that will be released if an unpredictable source starts generating radiation. Scientists like to say the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box and see what has happened. Dr George applies this to mean that, in theory, Santa could actually be all over the world on Christmas Eve – as long as nobody sees him. “If you observe him then the wave form collapses, your Santa is fine and he’s there, but all the other Santas in the world disappear, you spoil Christmas for everybody else.” So keep your eyes shut for all our sakes!!

Doctors warn Santa at risk….. Christmas 2020 will be unlike any other, but good boys and girls can rest assured that Santa Claus will still visit after he has been given the all clear by the doctor to fly across the world to deliver all the presents. Professor Emer Shelley, the dean of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, said travel restrictions would not apply to Father Christmas and he can visit as usual, even if people have to have smaller family gatherings. “Everybody is asleep when Santa Claus calls, so he’s not going to come across anybody when he travels all around the world from Lapland,” she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme. “Secondly, he travels so quickly that even if a part of his entourage were to have the virus attached to them, there is no risk of transmitting the virus to anybody … so at least that’s some good news on the public health front.” This will come as very good news to every child across the world who will be awaiting his visit come Christmas Eve.