Top 10 reasons my daughter (and I) are both better than Santa

In 2008, I wrote the post below, waiting for my daughter to come home from college for Christmas. Now I'm waiting for her and her husband to drive in from Vermont, but the sentiment is still the same (and my daughter has responded in kind).  Merry Christmas!

When I was a small child, I waited for Santa to come.

Now, I’m waiting for my youngest daughter Abby to come back from college.

This is a big improvement, because Abby offers several advantages over Santa.

TOP 10 REASONS ABBY IS BETTER THAN SANTA

1. Abby won’t come down the chimney, so there’s no risk of needing an emergency rescue team.
2. Abby can spread sunshine and joy the whole year around, not just at one time of the year.
3. Abby’s willing to play Monopoly or Risk or Rummicube, unlike Santa.
4. Abby doesn’t abuse animals, such as reindeer, by making them work too hard.
5. Abby will help take down the Christmas decorations. Santa’s never any help.
6. You can reach Abby on a cell phone, at least sometimes.
7. It may be a tossup comparing Santa’s “Ho, Ho, Ho” and Abby’s laugh with a snort occasionally thrown in. I’ll go with Abby on this.
8. Abby’s name can’t be re-arranged to spell “Satan”.
9. Abby’s better to talk about bikes with.
10. Santa’s hair always looks the same. Abby provides more surprises. Will it be blue? Pink? Shaved off?

ABBY'S REPLY: Top ten reasons dad is better than santa:

1. He provides year-round puns, Santa just writes a couple in dad's handwriting once a year

2. "Ho ho ho" is not nearly as good as jumping up and down shouting "BONUS BONUS BONUS" for reasons neither of us can remember

3. Nothing better than his full bodied laughter when I try to convince whimbly not to poop in the neighbor's yard (especially when my tactic is yelling "DONT POOP DONT POOP" as loud as possible).

4. Santa may be clever to visit all those houses, but nothing beats the satisfaction of teaming up with siblings to prevent Dad from trading sheep for wood and land locking him in traders of Catan (no houses HERE, DAD).

5. Santa doesn't go on long walks and up my step counts with me

6. Nothing like family photos full of rabbit ears (this includes Beth Kranders)

7. Santa eats all the milk and cookies. dad "accidentally" makes wrong turns and winds up at the ice cream store.

8. dad drinks all the beer i dont want to, and leaves all the nice light beers for me.

9. I can reach dad on the phone, sometimes

10. Nothing like forgetting to call dad in a while and checking your messages to him singing "Oklahoma" loudly and out of breath in the middle of a train station

Yes, Physicists, there really is a Santa

There are a number of "scientific" debunkings of "Santa", such as this one called "The Physics of Santa Claus".

It should probably be enough to point out that the "scientific" evidence in these articles seldom agree, with the math differing by orders of magnitude from one "scientist" to another.  But the Christmas season is a season of joy, and I'd rather shed light on the solution rather than just criticize the misled. These articles point out a number of "facts", contending that one Santa just couldn't do it all, but they fail too see the obvious conclusion -- FRANCHISING! This also explains why "Santa" is often known as "Santa Claus".

Let me explain:

1. By some calculations, Santa would need to make 822.6 visits per second, or 2,961,360 per hour. However, if we assume that there are 740,340 worldwide Santas (the exact number is known only to the Salvation Army), then each Santa has to make 1 visit only every 15 minutes.

2. Roughly speaking, this is

5 minutes for travel (footnote below)
1 minute for sorting out that house's gifts
1 minute for chimney diving / lock picking
3 minutes for gift arranging
2 minutes for cookie eating
1 minute for exiting premises and returning to sleigh
2 minutes "slack" time for unforseen events (most commonly, large dogs)
---
15 minutes

3. "Santa" is, of course, a very sought after title, and the geographic franchises to be the local "Santa" are subject to yearly adjustments due to population shifts. The changes in the legal paragraphs governing geographic territories in the "Santa" agreement are called "Santa Clauses", a term which eventually has been commonly applied to "Santas" themselves.

I am happy to be able to clarify this matter, by applying basic statistical and operations research principles --and please note that I am a member of both ASA (the American Statistical Association) and INFORMS (the professional society for Operations Research and Management Science).


Footnote: The travel time has been reduced considerably in the past century by the use of "jet sleighs" manufactured by Boeing. The original model 7 sleigh is, in fact, what gave the Boeing corporation its name. Elves, noticing how the new sleighs (with, sadly, aluminum reindeer) bounced from housetop to housetop, cheered "Boing! Boing!", which in an Elvin accent sounded like "Boeing! Boeing!".

Abby vs. Santa

When I was a small child, I waited for Santa to come.

Now, I’m waiting for my youngest daughter Abby to come back from college.

This is a big improvement, because Abby offers several advantages over Santa.

TOP 10 REASONS ABBY IS BETTER THAN SANTA

1. Abby won’t come down the chimney, so there’s no risk of needing an emergency rescue team.
2. Abby can spread sunshine and joy the whole year around, not just at one time of the year.
3. Abby’s willing to play Monopoly or Risk or Rummicube, unlike Santa.
4. Abby doesn’t abuse animals, such as reindeer, by making them work too hard.
5. Abby will help take down the Christmas decorations. Santa’s never any help.
6. You can reach Abby on a cell phone, at least sometimes.
7. It may be a tossup comparing Santa’s “Ho, Ho, Ho” and Abby’s laugh with a snort occasionally thrown in. I’ll go with Abby on this.
8. Abby’s name can’t be re-arranged to spell “Satan”.
9. Abby’s better to talk about bikes with.
10. Santa’s hair always looks the same. Abby provides more surprises. Will it be blue? Pink? Shaved off?