Santa and his reindeer are iconic, but are they harmful? Their Christmas journey is one that has been the topic of much debate on how realistic the idea of nine reindeer delivering Christmas joy really is, so I set out to answer the question of the effects of Santa’s journey on the real world.

To make their Christmas voyage, Santa’s reindeer would need to consume vast quantities of food. To fly one mile, each reindeer must consume about ½ lb of grass- the most energy-efficient natural food source. Considering that Santa’s journey, on the conservative end, is about 250 million miles, each individual reindeer must consume 125 million pounds of switchgrass. Multiplied by all 9 reindeer, a conservative estimate says that about 1.125 billion lbs of grass must be consumed for the reindeer to even survive the journey. This would produce a total of 1.125 billion pounds of biowaste in the forms of methane and solid excrement. This would add to the already alarming 11 billion tons of biowaste produced yearly adding about 11 percent more yearly to the issue.

Nitrogen-rich fertilizers, natural ones in particular, are plaguing our modern fertilization systems. In addition to many other things, excess nitrogen creates disparities between lands, destroys good farmland, pollutes water, and breaks the global food chains. Even a 10% increase in our biowaste output that is supposed to “help fertilize plants” would be devastating. There are many situations That could cause this to occur, one of the most fascinating being Christmas. Going by the best available research on the subject, if Santa’s reindeer were to consume 1.125 billion lbs of grass to make their Christmas voyage,

they would produce about 22,500,000 lbs of nitrogen and 5,625,000 lbs of phosphorus. In moderate quantities, this can be good for plants. However, this is enough nitrogen to fertilize 22,500,000,000 sq feet, or 516,528.92561983 acres concentrated into wherever the reindeer excrete as opposed to spread across farmland. For phosphorus, it is enough to cover 562,500,000 sq ft, or 12913.2231405 acres. This would certainly lethally pollute the water supply and any surrounding land.

To add to this, there are just over 526,000,000 Christian kids in the world who celebrate Christmas. With approximately 4.3 pounds of presents each, the total weight of the presents is 2.2618 billion pounds not even including any kind of other gifts. Without even including the sled, but taking into account a 300 pound Santa, the total weight of the sleigh and load is 2,261,800, 800 pounds. Divided by the 9 reindeer, each poor creature has to carry 251,311,200 pounds each. Converting this to horsepower (ET Method) and then into reindeer power (.63 HP), you get that it would take 40,367,238.8651 reindeer power for each reindeer to be able to haul the sleigh. Taking into account reindeer can carry up to 70 lbs, they are being overworked by 576,674.841 times by the most conservative estimates!

Using the most respectable estimate of the total weight of Santa and his presents of 2,215,800,800 lbs and converting it into kilograms, we get a total of 1,005,070,336.32 kg. Turning this into newtons and accounting for the force of gravity, it can be shown that 1 trillion kilograms would put out approximately 9,856,373,013.67 newtons of force. If the magical forces described are indeed true, it must use almost 10 trillion newtons of force. To put this into perspective, that is the equivalent of 200,764.82 tons of TNT, or about 10 times the strength of the Fat Man nuclear bomb! Each reindeer would be under the stress of an entire nuclear bomb explosion! However, this fails to even account for the speed at which the sleigh would be going. To reach all 526,000,000 children and considering an average household has 2 children, the sleigh would need to move at 10,416,666.67 mph. This alone causes problems, as it is moving at 0.01553296C, or about 1/10000 the speed of light. It is moving a ten-thousandth of the fastest thing possible in the universe without breaking the known laws of physics. converting this energy the 2.215 billion pound sleigh would be moving at, it shows that the total force of the sleigh moving at Mach 13,576 (which can create a shockwave capable shattering the earth’s crust) would be 54,486,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules, or 54.4859 Yotajoules. To put that into perspective on how insanely gigantic of a force that is, the Fat Man nuclear bomb put out about 50 TJ of force.

The sheer power of santa and his reindeer would be 108,972,000,000,000,000 times more powerful! This is 54,486,000,000 times the energy all humans have ever output. That’s about the total energy output of the entire sun in a millisecond. This may not sound like much time, but this is all the nuclear fusion occurring in the heavenly body responsible for our existence. The sun’s volume is 14,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 M^3, a size so massive that 1,300,000 earths could fit inside it. It weighs about 1,989,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms, or 333,000 times that of earth. Even a millisecond of exposure to this pure power is a destructive force to end all destructive forces on earth. To say that “magic protects the reindeer” assumes there’s a force capable of shattering earth’s crust being controlled by some deer with antlers flying through the sky.

In conclusion, the possibility of Santa making a realistic Christmas journey is slim. Even if he was able to, the effects on the world would be detrimental. The “magic” used by the reindeer could prevent all this, but it would need to be a force hundreds of quadrillions of times stronger than a nuclear bomb, something that is highly unlikely to exist on earth that can be harnessed to make reindeer fly.