Santa’s Sweet Tooth: How Many Calories Will Santa Eat This Christmas Eve?
Hint: It’s (even) more than you might think!
‘Tis the Season for Cookie Eating
Every Christmas Eve, Santa has the seemingly insurmountable task to not only deliver children’s gifts worldwide—but to consume their cookies and milk, too!
All of Saint Nick’s hard work certainly deserves some refreshments, but just how many calories are we talking? At KURU, we crunched some cookie calculations and found that since Kris Kringle clocks in at 395,830,485 homes, he’ll consume 71.2 billion calories from milk and cookies alone on Christmas Eve—yes, that’s with a “b”!
Keep reading for a calorie breakdown, what they do for Santa’s holiday weight gain, and how far he’d have to tread to walk it all off. (Maybe that’s how he spends the other 364 nights of the year: walking!)
How Many Calories Does Santa Eat On Christmas Eve?
Mr. Claus will visit about 395 million homes on Christmas Eve, and for our purposes, we’re going to assume he’s polite enough—and busy enough—to consume just one cookie and one glass of milk per household (And the reindeer usually get a carrot to munch on, too!).
All told, Santa could consume 71.2 billion calories before the night ends. More than half of those calories (40.4 billion) come from the legendary dairy consumption, and one cookie at each home adds another 30.9 billion calories. Whew! We’d say that number is just as magical as his overnight journey.
How Much Weight Does Santa Gain On Christmas Eve?
A well-fed belly is part of Santa’s iconic look. But you might imagine he gains some weight after eating so many Christmas Eve cookies and drinking so many glasses of milk!
If Santa eats 71.2 billion calories on Christmas Eve and has a metabolism like us, he would gain about 20.4 million pounds. With those kinds of numbers, we think it’s safe to say that Santa’s magic extends beyond his gift-giving abilities.
How Far Would Santa Have To Walk To Burn Off His Christmas Eve Calories?
Santa Claus knows all about covering extreme distances and doing so quickly! If he decided he wanted to do some walking to offset all those Christmas cookies, he’d have yet another long journey ahead of him.
How long of a journey, exactly? Well, Santa would need to walk 1.1 trillion steps, which amounts to 503 million miles, to burn off every last calorie from Christmas Eve.
How Many Carrot Calories Do Santa’s Reindeer Eat On Christmas Eve?
In addition to baking Santa cookies, many families leave out some carrots to feed the reindeer (who historically don’t enjoy having their noses—red or otherwise—rubbed in things they’re missing out on).
If every house on the trip leaves out one carrot, that amounts to 395 million of these root veggies! Assuming the reindeer split those carrots up evenly, each of the nine will eat more than 44,000 carrots on Christmas Eve. That comes out to about 2.3 billion calories for each of them. With all the energy they burn flying across the globe, perhaps their metabolisms can handle the extra intake!
Final Thoughts
Santa can expect to eat more cookies and drink more milk than you or I will ever come close to consuming in our lifetimes. But, just like the secret behind his delivery speed, we imagine there is magic at work when it comes to accounting for Santa’s Christmas calories.
But if you get around on your feet instead of via flying reindeer, make sure you wear supportive shoes to keep you moving through every errand this holiday season.
Methodology and Sources
KURU Footwear sourced calorie data from the Calorie Control Council database to determine the number of calories in a chocolate chip cookie, glass of milk, and carrots.
We then used the Washington Post’s estimates of how many houses Santa visits on Christmas Eve, and assumed he’ll eat a cookie and glass of milk in each house. We estimated that a carrot would be left at each house for the reindeer, and split the calories between Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph.
Omni Calculator’s Steps to Calories Calculator was used to determine the number of steps Santa would have to take to burn off the calories, and Inch Calculator to determine how many pounds would be gained.
Sources
- Calorie Control Council – Food Calorie Calculator
- Washington Post – The breathtaking scale of Santa Claus’s task on Christmas Eve
- Omni Calculator – Steps to Calories Calculator
- Inch Calculator – Calories to Pounds & Ounces Conversion
About Us
At KURU, we’re on a mission to help you Heel Better™ with footwear technology designed to relieve foot pain, so you can live a life you love. Since launching our innovative technology in 2008, we’ve received more than 35,000 five-star reviews from thousands of customers who tell us their KURU shoes helped them with conditions (such as plantar fasciitis) and got them back to doing what they love.
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