When we reach a certain age, we discover that Santa Claus isn’t a real man but a mythical figure. When that happens some of the joy and the mystery of Christmas disappears. Still for most of us he remains an enduring symbol of Christmas.

But what if Santa is real choosing to do his Christmas work out of the sight of human eyes?

I began to question the mythical Santa when Canada granted Santa full citizenship on Dec. 23, 2008, noting that his production and shipping facilities were located at the North Pole where Canada had jurisdiction. While I had a few questions about Canada’s claim of jurisdiction I thought that giving Santa citizenship gave credence to the idea that he is a real person.

Mythical or a real man, I have sometimes wondered how Santa goes about doing his job. How would he go about making all those billions of toys for the children of the world. Santa is always portrayed in books and movies as directing a team of elves making simple toys with hand tools, but I am beginning to suspect that image may have been created by Santa himself so that governments and multinational companies would ignore him. Anyway, that type of operation could not produce the billions of toys needed.

In reality, what I’ll call Santa Incorporated would need the manufacturing capacity of many toy companies along with designers, artists, draftsmen, and production workers. Backing those people would be an army of mechanical, and electrical engineers backed by mechanics, electricians, cleaners and janitors to keep production running smoothly. Finally with all the electronic and computerized toys available today he probably would have computer and electronic engineers or a good working relationship with likes of Microsoft, Apple, Panasonic and Sony.

You are probably wondering where Santa would find this army of workers. Of course, he has access to the elves, but I am sure he is able to entice many other qualified individuals with superb benefits. Who are these people? My guess it might be those people we knew in school or college who no one has seen in years and who we now describe as “having disappeared from the face of the earth.”

A major problem Santa must face is delivering these billions of toys all over the world in a twenty-four-hour period. I suppose it would be possible for he and his sled to travel at the speed of light but if we are to believe Einstein travel at light speed imposes some problems. For one, physicists tell us that as an object approaches light speed its mass, in this case Santa, his sled, and reindeer becomes infinite. Even if you stripped Lapland of all its reindeers, something I think the Laps would look askance at, you could never have enough reindeer to pull the sled.

Another problem in traveling at the speed of light is that as you approach light speed time slows down for you, so that while it might seem to Santa that he has been away for a few minutes, he might arrive back at the North Pole several years later in June.

It’s not just the time it would take to make billions of deliveries but because his sled is depicted as about the same size sled our ancestors would have used to go over the river and through the woods to grandma’s it could hold only a small fraction of the toys.

To solve that problem Santa Inc. probably decentralized its operations long ago. Rumor has it that they left the North Pole in early 2000 fearful of melting ice. Currently there is only a Santa mail handling facility at the North Pole. Santa Inc. likely now has production facilities throughout the world in places with suitable climates like Greenland, Norway and Northern Canada where because he is already a citizen he would be welcomed. Rumor is that Santa is considering building a major facility in Antarctica which is a location that is a central one to nations in the southern hemisphere. I believe that his elves who have worked in the frigid cold of the North Pole would find this an agreeable location.

Many of you are probably asking yourselves how it is possible that we have never seen an operation as big as Santa’s must be. My answer to that is that it is “Santa Magic” that also allows him to complete his rounds in twenty-four-hours in an obsolete sled pulled by eight reindeer and to go amongst us and even enter our homes unnoticed. I also suspect it’s “Santa Magic” and “the magic of Christmas” that he brings with him on Christmas Eve that makes Christmas time so wonderful.

Merry Christmas to all.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com