The Math behind How Santa Visits Every Kid on Christmas Eve

“The Atlantic" magazine ran the numbers on Santa's Christmas Eve journey, and here is what they estimate St. Nick will have to do to deliver presents to every Christian child in the world:

Because there are just over 526 MILLION Christian kids under the age of 14 worldwide, The Fat Guy will need to deliver presents to 22 MILLION kids per hour, every hour, on the night before Christmas. Now that may sound like an impossible feat, but it is do-able thanks to the different time zones.

Now, assuming he starts at the International Date Line and heads west, and assuming he can hit 6,100-kids-per-second, he'll only need about two minutes to give presents in New Zealand and 12 minutes, 30 seconds in Australia. The Middle East, will take him another two minutes to cover.

In North America, the Eastern time zone will take him two hours, 22 minutes, the Central time zone will take one hour, 47 minutes, Mountain time can be accomplished in just 29 minutes, and the Pacific time zone will take him one hour. After that, he can hit up western Canada, Alaska, the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii, and Samoa, in two minutes and 12 seconds.

As to how he gets the reindeer off the ground and is able to do all that in one night: he takes the magic dust, man! You know, a little bit for the reindeer, a little bit for Santa Claus, a little bit more for Santa Clause …