Season Greetings 2007
- Thread starter shortea
- Start date
Except that claims that Santa lives on north pole even he lives in Finland
Santa Claus Village
http://www.santagreeting.net
Santa Park
http://www.santapark.com
(me studies in that city)
I mean, this explains it all
http://www.lao.fi/?newsid=3874&deptid=12111&languageid=4&NEWS=1
THE IRISH TIMES: "There’s no business like snow business"
17th Dec 2007
Santa needs more elves; luckily, a college in Lapland offers a course, writes Derek Scally.
Help is at hand for anyone dithering over their CAO application. Why waste your youth studying agricultural science when you can take a one-year course in how to become an elf in Lapland? Lapland Vocation College in the provincial capital, Rovaniemi, is gearing up to offer the first-ever course in "elfing" from next April. The college hopes the course - free of charge - will reverse the dramatic decline in elf numbers in the region.
Successful candidates will spend a year learning about the history of Lapland, the history of elves and the secrets of the traditional Christmas.
"Elves have to have the right attitude and be customer-oriented," said project manager Kari Rekilä. "The elf may be the only contact visitors have with Lapland, so it’s important people go home with happy memories."
Christmas tourism is big business in Lapland, and another 500 elves are needed to act as guides to visitors. More than 600 charter planes arrived from Britain and Ireland alone last season. The Finnish tourist authority clocked up 829,000 foreign visitor hotel stays in Lapland in 2006 - including more than 8,000 Irish overnighters. This year’s season, which begins again next week and runs until mid-January, is expected to be even bigger.
The typical elf day involves meeting guests in full elf costume at the airport and providing them with warm clothes against the temperatures outside, which can drop to minus 30 degrees. The visitors are brought to the forest where daddy can drive a snow-plough or the reindeer-driven sleigh. Other possibilities include an elf-led snowshoe hike or a fishing trip in a frozen lake. The day ends by crossing the Arctic Circle to visit Santa.
Rekilä is anxious to reverse common misconceptions about elfing. "In your history in Ireland you think that elves are very small. But we have a lot more snow up here so our elves are taller."
Anyone contemplating the elf’s life would do well to read Santaland Diaries , a short story by American humorist David Sedaris. He worked for one season as Crumpet the elf at Macy’s department store in New York, site of 22,000 Santa visits each day, and where the golden rule is: "It is an elf’s lot to remain merry in the face of torment." He recalls one mother ordering Crumpet to tell her bold son that he risked getting coal in his stocking.
"I said that Santa no longer traffics in coal," he said, telling the boy instead: "if you’re bad, Santa comes to your house and steals things." When another child hissed "I’m going to get you fired", Crumpet replied: "And I’m going to get you killed."
The idea of an Elf Academy didn’t impress recovering ex-elves in Dublin yesterday. "I can’t understand how anyone can make a career out of being an elf," said Rachael (not her real name), a former elf in a major city centre shopping centre. She had a bad experience with a Santa she describes as "a racist alcoholic".
"We need an academy for Santas, not elves. I remember one boy coming out, asking, ’Mam, why does Santy smell like a pub?’"
BACK IN LAPLAND , most of the big tour operators are feeling the pinch from the elf shortage. Arctic Safari employs 250 elves each year - when they can find them.
"Many of them pretend to be normal people during the year - engineers, housewives and even doctors - who take time off work to be themselves," says Sami Paivike, development director of Arctic Safari. "They have to be quite young and have to be able to learn magic things like walking on snow without leaving footprints. And with so many people visiting Santa, they have to have a good knowledge of safety issues, too."
The reason for the recent shortage of elves, apart from the surge in visitors, is perhaps related to the fact that elf wages start at just €7.50 an hour. Paivike says most of their elves don’t seem to mind the modest payment.
"They have a big responsibility in one of the most important seasons," he said. "And the elves have a union keeping watch on hours and payment. But I don’t know how Santa’s operations are financed. I just know he’s not willing to make any profit with it."
[follow the link and you'll find the address to send your application
]
Okay then well I think I will just wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light, From now on our troubles Will be out of sight.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Make the Yule-tide gay, From now on our troubles Will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days, Happy golden days of yore,
Faithful friends who are dear to us Gather near to us once more.
Through the years We all will be together If the Fates allow, Hang a shining star On the highest bough, And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light, From now on our troubles Will be out of sight.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Make the Yule-tide gay, From now on our troubles Will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days, Happy golden days of yore,
Faithful friends who are dear to us Gather near to us once more.
Through the years We all will be together If the Fates allow, Hang a shining star On the highest bough, And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.
Does Santa Exist?
Is There a Santa Clause?
1. No known species of reindeer that can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer (which only Santa has ever seen.)
2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18 in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total-378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept),we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second-a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload-not even counting the weight of the sleigh-to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison-this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance-this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
What I wanted to say:
Merry christmas to ya'll
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Is There a Santa Clause?
1. No known species of reindeer that can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer (which only Santa has ever seen.)
2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18 in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total-378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept),we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second-a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload-not even counting the weight of the sleigh-to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison-this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance-this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion: If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
What I wanted to say:
Merry christmas to ya'll
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
calleighspeedle
Coroner
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!
Merry Christmas to everybody, I hope this will be the best ever
nattybatty55
Nadalaholic
Merry Christmas to eveyone on the board
starzsgirl
Captain
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
