Around this time each year, approximately 2.2 billion Christians are preparing to celebrate Christmas, in one form or another. Many of these people, particularly the younger demographic, believe that a portly gentleman in a red suit is busily compiling a comprehensive list of names, both naughty and nice, to facilitate Christmas gift distribution.
But what tends to be overlooked about the whole process – the gifts, wear and tear on the sleigh, the cost of keeping reindeer in carrots, and the annual elves office party (and the clean-up after, goodness those elves know how to party) – is the incredible cost of the event itself.
Let’s assume there are around 526,000,000 children who would, at first glance, be eligible for a gift from the big man. Of those, we can probably subtract a reasonable percentage for being naughty, perhaps 10% (if we base this on a lot of the kids we know, we could probably increase that percentage, but let’s be generous. This is the season for giving after all). That would leave us with 473,400,000 children. If Santa budgeted $10 per gift, the sums would be staggering!
Santa must have the best team of financial planners in the world working on his investments, with some amazing returns. His ability to keep that enterprise running year after year seems almost… magical.
Here’s hoping you and yours are on the nice list this year. Happy holidays from the team at Paperwork Magic.