17 Things You Never Knew About Santa Claus

1 | His sleigh is probably the fastest vehicle ever made.

Santa doesn't get enough credit for the amount he does in just one night. It's one thing to say he visits every boy and girl and leaves them gifts, but when you crunch the numbers, you start to realize what a staggering job that really is. There are roughly 2.1 billion children in the world, and an average of 2.5 children per household.

That means he has to make 842 million stops on Christmas Eve, and 31 hours to do it (thanks to time zone differences). It's been calculated that to get to every house in that time period, his sleigh needs to move at 1,800 miles per second. Compare that to NASA's Juno spacecraft, often considered the fastest man-made object, which only reaches speeds of 40 miles per second.

2 | He's only worn red since he started shilling for Coca-Cola.

Santa's had a wide range of colorful outfits over the years—green, brown, blue, and even tan—but it's only been since 1931 that he's known to wear primarily a red-and-white suit. It's all thanks to the Coca-Cola company, which used Santa in the early 30s to sell Coke products, and of course dressed him in the brand's trademark colors. It's been that way ever since, and Santa continues to be one of the centerpiece of Coke's holiday advertising campaign.

3 | He was a bachelor for many years.

Santa (or a version of Santa) has been around for centuries, and he's been a part of American culture since at least the late 1700s. But it wasn't until the mid-19th century before anybody bothered to wonder if Santa would ever give up his bachelor ways and settle down. His spouse was first revealed in an 1849 short story—"A Christmas Legend," written by a Philadelphia missionary named James Rees—and Mrs. Claus soon became a regular presence in Christmas tales. But it wasn't until 1889, in a poem called "Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride," that she started to demand more of the holiday spotlight. "Why should you have all the glory of the joyous Christmas story?" she asks her hubbie.

4 | Santa's chimney delivery system was invented by the same guy who dreamed up the Headless Horseman.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Washington Irving, the author more widely remembered for giving the world "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," for concocting a better way for Santa to deliver presents than slipping through a window. It was in Irving's satirical short story from 1812, called "Knickerbocker's History of New York," where Saint Nick is first described as "rattl[ing] down the chimney" to "bring his yearly presents to children." You thought that legend originated with "Twas the Night Before Christmas"? Nope, that was almost 12 years later, and although the more famous poem tweaked Irving's version—Santa was given a sleigh with reindeer instead of a self-driving wagon—it's Irving who deserves credit for all those chimney visits.

5 | Nobody is really sure who wrote "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

When "A Visit from St. Nicholas"—or as it later came to be known, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"—was first published in a New York newspaper in 1823, there was no name attached to it. It was sent anonymously to the Troy Sentinel and was published with a preface from the editors that began: "We know not to whom we are indebted for the following description of that unwearied patron of children, Santa Claus... but, from whomsoever it may have come, we give thanks for it."

In 1844, it was credited to a bible college professor named Clement Clarke Moore, but there are some who insist it was stolen from the true author, Henry Livingston, Jr., and there was even (allegedly) an old manuscript to prove it. But of course, that supposed "evidence" was destroyed in a fire. The mystery continues to this day.

6 | All letters addressed to Santa in the United States go to the same post office.

Since around 1914, all letters addressed to Santa Claus go to the same place. No, not the North Pole; they end up at a small post office in Santa Claus, Indiana, where every letter with a return address will receive a reply, handwritten by the postmaster or one of his many "elf" volunteers. Pat Koch has carried on the tradition that began with his father, and his many helpers share his enthusiasm. "They're writing a letter to us, and they're wanting an answer back from Santa Claus," Ed Rinehart, an elf at the Santa Claus post office, said in an interview. "So my job is to make sure that those letters get back in the mail to them."

Outside of the US, some countries have taken it a step further, creating unique zip or postal codes just for Santa. Be sure to include code 99999 if writing to Santa in Finland, and in Canada the correct postal code is the oh-so-clever H0H 0H0. Thanks to Canada's "Santa Letter-Writing Program" literacy initiative, the head elf personally responds to each and every letter.

7 | Santa probably needs a few more reindeer.

For all the children in the world that Santa owes presents to on Christmas Eve, he needs to carry around at least 400,000 tons of toys in his sleigh. And to haul that kind of load would take a bit more horsepower—er, reindeer power—than what he's rumored to travel with. He purportedly has only nine reindeer—Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph—but he'd need at least 360,000 magical reindeer to get a sleigh with that much raw tonnage into the air.

8 | There's a heated debate about what Santa's salary should be.

Does Santa—the real Santa, not the thousands of mall Santas and impersonators—deserve a salary? The writers at Insure.com thought so, and they tried to calculate Santa's earning potential using wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Their luckiest guess is that Santa makes in the ballpark of $140,000 a year.

Well, not everybody agrees. A survey from Insure.com found that 29 percent of people thought Santa should earn around $1.8 billion annually, while 29 percent thought he should do the job pro bono. A smaller faction, 17 percent, believed Mr. Claus should be making a little less than $100,000 a year, while 16 percent thought his salary should be somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000.

9 | He's not especially beloved by Philadelphia Eagles fans.

Over 54,000 hometown fans watched the Philadelphia Eagles endure a humiliating loss during a snowy December game in 1968, so suffice is to say the mood wasn't festive. It probably wasn't a surprise then that a halftime appearance by Santa himself didn't go as planned. The jolly old elf was greeted with boos, and then the crowd started pelting him with snowballs.

So, did they at least feel postgame regret? Nope. The general consensus among fans was "Santa had it coming." As for the guy who dressed up like Santa for the game, when asked if he'd repeat the performance, he responded, "No way. If it doesn't snow, they'll probably throw beer bottles."

10 | Two different towns claim to be the "true" home of Santa Claus.

You'd think that the town of North Pole, Alaska, had good reason to claim—as Paul Brown, the general manager of the Santa Claus House, once did—that they're "Santa's house in the North Pole. If you want to meet the real guy, you come here." But another town, Rovaniemi, located in the northernmost province of Finland, also insists that they are "the only Official Hometown of Santa Claus," according to a communications officer for Rovaniemi tourism. "And the Santa Claus Office in Santa Claus Village is the only place in the world where you can meet Santa Claus 365 days a year." Fellas, fellas, relax! Can't we find a compromise, where maybe Santa splits his time between two hometowns?

11 | Marvel comics named Santa as "the most powerful mutant ever."

We knew that Santa had magical powers, but who knew he was also a bona fide mutant? Not only that, but apparently he's also "the most powerful mutant ever registered," and that's according to Cerebro, the mutant-detecting device created by Professor X for the Marvel Universe's X-Men. We learned this shocking news in a special 1991 X-Men comic, in which the team of heroes travel to New York City to investigate the so-called Omega level mutant, and discover Santa's abilities include immortality, telepathy, teleportation, weather manipulation, molecular manipulation, immunity to cold and heat, and gravity manipulation.

12 | He has a pilot's license, and a (Canadian) passport.

Lest you were concerned that Santa wasn't legal to fly, he was officially issued a pilot's license from the U.S. government in 1927. He also has a passport, but that's a bit more controversial. Both Santa and Mrs. Claus received their very own ePassports in 2013—from Canada. During a special ceremony in Toronto, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said of the holiday pair, "Like so many Canadian citizens who enjoy extensive travel around the world, the Claus' were thrilled to receive their ePassports—which are among the world's most accepted and secure travel documents… whether you are traveling by car, by boat, or with a team of flying reindeer." The United States and every other country with a claim to Santa Claus has yet to respond, but this has international incident written all over it.

13 | Christmas was once against the law.

The Puritans of New England were no fans of Santa Claus. Following in the tradition of their British forefathers, who declared that December 25 should be a day of "fasting and humiliation," the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law in 1659 that warned "whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way" could be fined up to five shilling for the offense. What was the big deal? Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas, explained in an interview that "Puritans believed Christmas was basically just a pagan custom that the Catholics took over without any biblical basis for it."

14 | He originally delivered money so kids wouldn't grow up to become courtesans.

Santa Claus wasn't always a benevolent elf who leaves gifts for kids to reward good behavior. He began as St. Nicholas, the 4th-century bishop in Patara, or what's called Turkey today. Nicholas was horrified that neighborhood girls might be sold by their fathers into sex work, so he'd secretly deliver bags of gold to each family, which they could use as dowries for their daughters and thus make them more likely to find a husband. Since this was more than 900 years before the chimney was even invented, St. Nicholas would fling the money through their windows.

He also allegedly saved kids from being murdered by evil butchers and sold as ham. If Santa had continued these traditions in modern times, Christmas would be a very, very different holiday. "Merry Christmas! I hope Santa visits you tonight and saves you from becoming a courtesan and/or lunch meat!"

15 | He eats way too much sugar.

Santa didn't get a little round belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly from eating too much broccoli. No, Kris Kringle loves his sweets. And he has millions of kids across the globe encouraging his bad habits. If every household he visits leaves an average of two cookies for Santa, that means in a single evening, he consumes 374 billion calories, 33,000 tons of sugar, and 151,000 tons of fat. To burn off all of those empty calories, Santa would need to run for approximately 109,000 years. Good luck with that, Santa!

16 | He gets the most letters from France.

Santa gets billions of letters every year from children all over the world, but if you thought most of them were coming from the United States, you would be wrong. The country sending the most paper mail to Santa every holiday season, according to statistical data, is none other than France. That's right, French boys and girls are sending a staggering 1.7 million letters to Jolly Old Saint Nick, compared to 1.35 million from Canada and just over a million letters from the United States. Mexico and Latin America didn't even make the list, which may be because of the Mexican custom of kids putting their letters to Santa in helium balloons and releasing them into the air.

17 | There is no Santa Claus in Iceland.

Before you get sad that Iceland never gets a visit from St. Nick, they actually may have it better than the rest of us. Instead of Santa Claus, they have thirteen "Yule Lads," who are like mischievous mini-versions of Santa, with names like Bowl Licker, Sausage Swiper, Pot Scraper, and Spoon Licker. One of them visits Icelandic children every day between December 11th and January 6th, leaving gifts in their shoes (assuming they've been well behaved.)

There's also something called a Grýla which is rumored to cook children alive if they haven't been listening to their parents, and a frightening black cat called the Christmas Cat who eats kids who aren't wearing at least one pair of new clothing, with sounds kind of harsh to us. Actually, we take it back. You should feel sad for Iceland. That sounds like one terrifying Christmas. And for more shake-in-your-boots tales, here are 23 Urban Legends That Are Totally True.

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