Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About Santa

Christmas Countdown time! Santa, St. Nicholas, Father Christmas. They're all the same? Think again

Find out about this and nine other facts that you probably didn't know about Santa.

Source: Lots of research and I tell you what, I put a lot of effort into this list looking all over the internet for the best facts I could find. I don't just rush lists out there like the more popular users. No, I put effort into my lists. Quality over quantity as I say.
The Top Ten
1 Santa, Father Christmas and St. Nicholas are different entities

Before Santa were Father Christmas and St Nicholas. St Nicholas was the original conception for a "Santa" like being. He was a real life person renowned for his extreme generosity towards poor children.

Father Christmas was an English version of the concept who usually wore green, had a long beard and wasn't fat like Santa. He came around in around 1435, before many other versions such as Kris Kringle, who evolved into today's Santa no thanks to Coca Cola. Look further to see more on that.

2 Santa originally lived in Turkey

St Nicholas, the original idea for a Santa like being was a real person who lived in Turkey for most of his life. Did Santa ever live at the North Pole? You decide.

3 Santa's reindeer are all female

Even Rudolph. The thing is, that these older reindeer which pulls his sleigh all have their antlers still intact at this time. This means the reindeer must be female as theirs fall off at summer time instead of early December like the males. Santa, you've got some naming issues my friend!

Maybe since Santa's reindeer are of special kind (they can fly), maybe these variety of reindeer have permanent, non-breakable antlers. That could include both the male reindeer and the female reindeerin his team of reindeer.

4 The idea for Santa came from a generous man

Just about everyone knows that. St. Nicholas used to be just Nicholas, a rich guy that dropped gold down someone's chimney because they couldn't afford to get married, so he helped them out. It became a tradition and because of his generosity, the church made him a saint.

That man was St Nicholas and he was renowned for his extreme generosity towards a poor family by tossing a bag of gold through their window at night.

I'm not quite sure I can imagine a bag of gold flying through my window at night. Hope he didn't hit anyone.

5 Coca Cola didn't make Santa red

The Turkish version, St. Nicholas wore red and this was before the Coca Cola. The design of Santa came from the British version known as Father Christmas who wore green and was rather skinny compared to the fat American version of Santa. It was popularised but the image wasn't exactly created by Coca Cola. Actually, the Santa design we have now was created by Thomas Nast back in 1860. This was quite a while before Coca Cola did their adverts on him.

6 Santa travels faster than the speed of sound

Santa Claus must visit an estimated 842 million homes and travel 221 million miles to reach every child's home on Christmas Eve. This feat requires him to travel at a speed of 650 miles per second. To get some perspective on this, the speed of sound is 340.29 metres per second. Santa and his reindeer are 567150 times faster than the speed of sound and this is just the lowest estimate.

The different time zones around the world would make it to where he doesn't do it all in 12 hours, but at night in each time zone. But he would still need to travel pretty fast...

7 Santa didn't always have a beard

Some versions like Father Christmas and the jolly fat man we all know now had beards but some versions like the Dutch one were lacking the beard. Furthermore the Dutch version was tall and slender on top of not having a beard.

8 Santa is the world's richest man

Well we don't know his net worth but it would have to be a lot if he was to deliver all those presents to everybody every year. Just think about that... There are over seven billion people in the world. He must be pretty damn wealthy.

9 Iceland has 13 Santas including one that kidnaps children

Iceland has in place of Santa the Yuletide lads; a group of mischievous characters which either pull pranks or if they're feeling nice, give presents. One of them in particular named GrĂ½la, an old woman who will kidnap children if they've been naughty. That's really more of a present for the parents than anything else.

The only bad thing about Iceland.

10 Santa has a real postal code
The Contenders
11 In Britain, his name is usually either Father Christmas or Santa Claus
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