How Much Santa Eats On Xmas Eve [Infographic] (2024)

FAQs

How many calories would Santa eat on Christmas Eve? ›

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.

While Santa is popping some presents under our artificial Christmas trees, he munches his way through an incredible amount of mince pies, cookies and chocolates, and glugs plenty of milk, sherry and whiskey.

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(If we're talking about just the U.S., it's approximated that of the 100 million households, about 1 million are serving sweets to St. Nick.) According to An Idea, If Santa takes two bites of each cookie served around the world, he consumes roughly 336,150,386 cookies.

With 1 glass of milk left out for Santa in each home, Santa drinks around 86 million glasses or 688 million ounces of milk (that's enough to fill 8 Olympic-sized swimming pools!). Even for Santa, that is a lot of milk.

A twelve-dish Christmas Eve supper is traditionally prepared to commemorate Jesus' twelve disciples in Central, Northern and Eastern European cultures, especially those that were formerly part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and neighbouring countries.

Santa loves all types of cookies. He has tried more than most people on Christmas Eve, but his favorite is a sugar cookie. Of course, of all the recipes he's tried, he likes Mrs. Claus' sugar cookies the best!

UK: Sherry (or brandy or whisky)

Basically, something strong and warming, whether fortified wine or a single malt. But the tradition is sherry. Many families have their own traditions as well, and some even leave out a non-alcoholic snack, especially milk.

Santa loves his white milk and cookies, but after stopping at every child's home, give Santa Claus some flavored milk for a tasty surprise. Or switch out the milk for some holiday eggnog! Put your own twist on holiday traditions this year with your family.

Traditional dishes like pasties and ravioli with cabbage stuffing or dumplings with mushrooms and cabbage. Dumplings with potatoes and cottage cheese or stuffed only with mushrooms are other frequent Christmas Eve table items.

Based on this data from General Mills, Peanut Butter Blossoms are the most popular Christmas cookie in the country; it's the most-visited cookie recipe in seven states, which means it's the most common favorite cookie in the U.S. That's a pretty high honor!

How fast does Santa travel on Christmas Eve? ›

Crunching the figures, we get a speed of 4,705,882km/h, far slower than the speed of light, but still fast enough that the air resistance is likely to vaporise Santa, along with all the children's gifts… if he wasn't riding a magic sleigh.

The specific choice of milk and cookies can be considered a blend of many cultural traditions. Cookies alone have been a quintessential part of festive celebrations in European cultures, while a glass of milk adds an element of warmth for Santa during his long and cold journey.

According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), an online system that tracks Santa's progress around the planet, he weighs 260lbs, and is 5ft 7 inches tall; so if he were to hock back 24 million 25ml shots of 18% ABV sherry over nine hours, his Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) would be 120,935.851.

Without a doubt, Santa's accomplishments are definitely deserving of all the treats that are so generously left out for him on Christmas Eve. But what does the big guy actually prefer to have in his cup of cheer? According to most American children, a glass of cold milk is the key to quenching Santa's thirst.

A Christmas stocking is an empty sock or sock-shaped bag that is hung on Saint Nicholas Day or Christmas Eve so that Saint Nicholas (or the related figures of Santa Claus and Father Christmas) can fill it with small toys, candy, fruit, coins or other small gifts when he arrives.

According to a study by Wren Kitchens, the average person packs away 5,373 calories on Christmas day. That's twice the recommended daily average for men and three times the RDA for women. It would take the average person 208 hours (or 8.6 days) of non-stop walking to burn that off.

That means that Santa has to travel 395,830,485 miles over the course of the night to hit each household. (This is excluding his trip to and from the North Pole which he could probably do during the day since he would mostly be flying over the empty Pacific.)

On Christmas Eve (Noche Buena), the extended family join for a dinner of roast turkey and white rice seasoned with garlic. Roast potatoes and cooked sweetened apple puree are often served as well. The main dessert is panettone. It is usually accompanied by a cup of thick hot chocolate.