SimonS asked:


When did the tradition of Santa Claus begin?
How did he get the name “Santa Claus” when it originates as “St. Nicholas”?
How are Elves, Reindeer and a flying sleigh involved with the birth of Christ?

Oswaldo

Laina Huculak asked:


Let’s face it: Santa’s getting up there. Though no official statement from his publicist has been released, we are all expecting that Mr. Claus will be retiring soon. I think hundreds of years as a civil servant are more than enough to start collecting a pension. All of the elves have roughly equal seniority, so hiring within the company would create workplace tensions and could lead to a strike or, even worse, a coup d’état. And no one likes a militant elf; they’re so confrontational. To avoid a public relations nightmare, the people at Claus Corp. have decided in favor of outsourcing and invite all willing participants to apply. Before you start ho, ho, hoing, there are some prerequisites you must satisfy.

1. You must love children. Now, we don’t mean like them a little, or have logged a few hours babysitting. You are to become the hero to every single boy and girl in the world (and a few developmentally halted adults). It is imperative you treat these billions of kids as if they were your own grandchildren. Eat their cookies, regardless of their taste and shape. Drink their milk even if their little fingers dipped in. Respond to their letters in a loving, compassionate way, even if you know there’s no chance they’ll receive everything on their lists.

2. You must have the right look. Our HR department will remind us time and again that we can’t ask you to gain weight, grow a beard, and wear nothing but red velvet the rest of your career. However, the current Santa Claus has done an excellent job of portraying a figure who we all recognize, from his wire-rimmed glasses to his soot-stained boots. You are encouraged to take over this position and make it your own . . . but don’t stray too far from the original recognizable figure. For example, we frown upon wearing green, but encourage you to stuff a pillow in your fur-lined coat.

3. You must know how to operate a sleigh. This is, hands down the most significant aspect of the job. Owning and operating a sleigh is a privilege, not a right, so safety and caution are of the utmost importance. Being that those of us who don’t live in the North Pole are not readily familiar with such machinery, we encourage you to purchase a sleigh bed for practice. These beds are of a perfect shape and are made of the finest wood. Meticulous detailing on either side adds a creative touch for those who like to think outside the box. As well, sleigh beds are truly comfortable and safe and provide an excellent environment for hours and hours of sleigh-steering practice. Claus Corp will provide you with reindeer.

If you feel that becoming Santa Claus is the right fit for you, we would be delighted to receive your application. Visit Sleigh Bed Select for further details.



Kailyn

Lyotty from Finland asked:


Like we all know, the real Santa Claus lives and has always lived far, far in Korvatunturi in Lapland, Finland. There, he has his home and the secret workshop, the gift shop and many other buildings. The strange thing is that the way to Korvatunturi is known only by Santa Claus himself, his elves and of course his faithful reindeer. You can easily find the location of Korvatunturi (483 meters high) on the map.

 

Korvatunturi is a mysterious place where the elves can listen to the children and adults whether they are good or bad. The elves listen to all the people and write their observations in the gigantic notebooks. In general, they book only positive comments on the notebooks. Sometimes it is however also necessary note down tantrums, grumbling and bad behaviour, which from time to time can accidentally happen. Especially before Christmas, the elves are known to move to homes and in neighborhoods near children making close observations about the children’s behaviour and their kindness.

 

Just before Christmas, Santa Claus examines all the comments in the notebooks and carefully chooses gifts for all kind and good children. In case there is a note of naughtiness, Santa Claus May also show his disapproval. Fortunately, in recent years, there have been fewer such incidents because everyone has been so good.

 

Did you know that in Finland, the home country of Santa Claus, he personally delivers all the gifts to the kind children? When he arrives in the house, he always asks the question: “Ho, Ho, Ho, are there any kind children here?”. Children are often singing a short song to Santa and also promise to be very good next year too. Then Santa, with the help of the children to read labels, gives the gifts to the children and sometimes to their parents too.

 

In many other countries Santa Claus brings gifts to the homes of children while they are asleep.In the morning, parents give the gifts to their children. At this time Santa Claus is already on his way back to Korvatunturi.

 

Letter from Santa Claus is a delight for everybody.

 

Do you remember how exciting it was to wait for Christmas when you were a child? It could have been a many years ago, but the same feelings still arise when the Christmas season begins.That is why it is so nice to get a letter just before Christmas, a letter that has been sent by the Finnish Santa Claus. You can choose from 15 different language options and your name can also been added to it – by Santa Claus of course, who naturally signs the letter.

 

The original letter from Father Christmas is a nice way to remember your friends and family members anywhere in the world. With the letter you can send the spirit of Christmas to your family and loved ones and are spreading the traditional, warm Christmas feeling.Delivered to your children, friends, loved ones or clients to all over the world for Christmas 2008!

 

Click here to order Santa´s letter



Cheyanne

Stacey Barr asked:


Santa Claus is one amazing character.

To avoid disappointing any of the estimated 380 odd million Christian children in the world on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus needs to be capable of some pretty spectacular performances:



Santa’s memory is so good, he can recall 380 million childrens’ Christmas wish lists.

Santa visits about 970 households per second.

To achieve this, his sleigh has to travel at over 1000 kilometres per second (3000 times the speed of sound).

The sleigh’s payload (that is, the sack of toys) is estimated at being about 500,000 tonnes.

Santa’s reindeer are each 40,000 times stronger and faster than the average ordinary reindeer.

Santa’s reindeer, due to air resistance created by the astronomical speeds they travel, each absorb up to 14,300,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy every second.

Each time the sleigh takes off, Santa is subjected to 17,500 g of force (apparently the average human will black out at about 4 or 5 g).



This is an engineer’s perspective on Santa Claus, (you can read more at http://www.baltimoremd.com/humor/santaengineer.html) and it has been suggested that these calculations might be proof that Santa Claus doesn’t really exist. But that’s not the point of this month’s Handy Hint. These trivial statistics illustrate a few interesting points about performance measures…

Measuring Capability

Measuring what your organisation or process or team is capable of (modelled from past performance) can help you anticipate how likely you are to meet changing stakeholder needs. As the Christian population in the world grows, how much faster will Santa have to travel, and how much more will the sleigh have to carry, and how much more energy will the reindeer have to absorb? How many more toys will the elves have to make?

What kinds of toys will most influence the children of tomorrow to be nice and not naughty?

Measuring Outputs

Santa’s outputs are the results of his activities, what he produces. And what he produces is gifts delivered to Christian children that have been nice and not naughty. Measures of his outputs might include: the % of nice children that did receive a gift, the % of children that received the gift they requested, the % of children that received a gift they loved, the safe return of Santa and the reindeer to the North Pole sometime on Christmas morning.

Outputs are produced over and over again by our business processes, but for the purpose of making some bigger, ultimate set of outcomes happen.

Measuring Outcomes

Measuring activities and outputs might be interesting and easy, but we need to measure the ultimate set of outcomes of our activities and products if we care at all about what we are doing. Santa doesn’t do the Christmas Eve thing because it’s a challenge. He actually really wants to encourage children to be nice and not naughty (source:http://www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Q&A/Santa.html) and he rewards those children being nice with gifts on Christmas Eve.

Santa’s ultimate outcome measure might be the percentage of children that always behave nicely. He might analyse trends in this information – he has years and years of history, as he’s been at it for around 1600 years (source: http://www.oldandsold.com/articles01/article762.shtml).

Santa might also benchmark this measure against the motivators for non-Christian children to be nice and not naughty, to see how well his gift strategy is working.

Linking Outcome Measures to Capability Measures

There is a logical connection among these three types of measures. The capability measures predict the quality of the outputs, and the quality of the outputs predict the quality of the outcomes. If Santa’s elves make the right kinds of toys, then more children will get the gift they want and thus, more children will be influenced by Santa’s message to be nice and not naughty.

YOUR CHALLENGE:

Have a very safe, incredibly happy and gorgeously relaxing Christmas Holiday Season! And hopefully that *won’t* be a challenge!



Jaden