Razor
21-12-06, 03:25 PM
Shocking news for the festive season: some killjoys are putting it about that Santa Claus doesn’t actually exist. A number of teachers have told their innocent charges that Father Christmas is nothing more than the stuff of fairy tales and fantasy.
Bah humbug! That’s what I say. And to prove to the sceptics that the big man with the red coat and white beard is just as real as the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, I’ve sneaked a look at his latest set of accounts. They show just how much it costs to run Christmas – and it’s not cheap.
A job for life, not just for Christmas
The first thing to remember is that, while Santa only has a high public profile for a few days each December, he actually works for much longer. Think about it: there are 1.5 billion children in the world. In the UK alone there are around 12 million. That’s a lot of presents to assemble and wrap…
Little wonder Santa employs a sizeable workforce at his North Pole HQ. And many of his 1,000 elves are highly skilled, commanding hourly rates equivalent to £15 per hour. Of course, that’s not including hefty overtime bills in the hectic days counted down by the opening of the Advent calendar.
Santa’s expensive little helpers
Talk about an unbreakable deadline. But he’s never missed a Christmas Eve yet…
So, if the elves each get £120 for an eight-hour day for 28 days, that’s £3,360 a head – or £4,000 with overtime. Santa has to pay Lapland’s equivalent of the UK’s employer’s national insurance contribution at 10% and he chips in 5% for each employee as a payment into the company pension. That’s a total of £4,600 for every worker. So, with a 1,000 on the books, the salary bill comes to £4.6 million.
The cost would have been higher if Santa had put his staff into a private medical scheme, but luckily Lapland has a superb National Elf Service.
The labour costs are bumped up by wages for 200 administration staff who deal with millions of letters and emails sent to Father Christmas throughout the autumn. He could probably get away with paying the minimum wage (£5.35 in the UK) but being the generous sort, he pays £7 an hour, which adds another £300,000 to the wage bill.
Sleigh bells ringing
As you might expect, travel costs also take a big bite out of Santa’s budget. There’s a top-of-the-range 9x4 sleigh in his garage, with a top speed that you can only dream about. It’s got a few miles on the clock, but he still has to insure it for £100,000, paying an annual premium of £5,000. Luckily, he’s the only named driver. And at least there’s no London congestion charge on the night of December 24.
Eco-conscious drivers should be green with envy because Santa’s sleigh is as fuel-efficient they come. The nine reindeer (can you name them?*) enjoy a bag of oats each a day, which comes to £45. They need feeding year-round, of course – which adds £16,425 to Santa’s annual costs.
Thankfully, many of the homes on Santa’s mad-dash trip around the world leave out a carrot or two for Rudolph and his pals – a tasty treat that keeps the energy levels up as the miles flash by. Santa himself harvests a healthy number of mince pies and a positively unhealthy amount of sherry on his rounds.
A few Wiis up his sleeve
And what of the presents? The top two gifts in the UK this Christmas are the Dr Who Cyberman mask for boys (£29.99) and Bratz Diamondz dolls for girls (£24.99). If each child in the UK were to get just one of these, the total cost would be around £330,000,000. As we know, most children are lucky enough to get several presents, and some get expensive gadgetry like X-boxes, Playstations and iPods. This year’s must-have – the Nintendo Wii – costs £180 (if you can find a store that’s got one in stock and you’re prepared to queue overnight to fight for it). But scarcity value means they’re changing hands for £1,000 on the internet. I bet Santa has a few up his sleeve, though.
All in all, it is reckoned by accountants Deloitte that Santa will bring presents worth an astounding £15 billion this year. But if you thought that was the end of his spending, think again. When he gets back to Lapland on Christmas morning, he throws a fantastic party for his helpers. He budgets for £25 a head – another £30,000 on the account.
So there you have it. It takes a bewildering amount of money - some £42 billion - to make Christmas special for the child in all of us that casts an eye to the heavens on Christmas Eve and wonders… But with that bill, he must be magic.
*Santa’s reindeer are: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and of course - Rudolph.
Bah humbug! That’s what I say. And to prove to the sceptics that the big man with the red coat and white beard is just as real as the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, I’ve sneaked a look at his latest set of accounts. They show just how much it costs to run Christmas – and it’s not cheap.
A job for life, not just for Christmas
The first thing to remember is that, while Santa only has a high public profile for a few days each December, he actually works for much longer. Think about it: there are 1.5 billion children in the world. In the UK alone there are around 12 million. That’s a lot of presents to assemble and wrap…
Little wonder Santa employs a sizeable workforce at his North Pole HQ. And many of his 1,000 elves are highly skilled, commanding hourly rates equivalent to £15 per hour. Of course, that’s not including hefty overtime bills in the hectic days counted down by the opening of the Advent calendar.
Santa’s expensive little helpers
Talk about an unbreakable deadline. But he’s never missed a Christmas Eve yet…
So, if the elves each get £120 for an eight-hour day for 28 days, that’s £3,360 a head – or £4,000 with overtime. Santa has to pay Lapland’s equivalent of the UK’s employer’s national insurance contribution at 10% and he chips in 5% for each employee as a payment into the company pension. That’s a total of £4,600 for every worker. So, with a 1,000 on the books, the salary bill comes to £4.6 million.
The cost would have been higher if Santa had put his staff into a private medical scheme, but luckily Lapland has a superb National Elf Service.
The labour costs are bumped up by wages for 200 administration staff who deal with millions of letters and emails sent to Father Christmas throughout the autumn. He could probably get away with paying the minimum wage (£5.35 in the UK) but being the generous sort, he pays £7 an hour, which adds another £300,000 to the wage bill.
Sleigh bells ringing
As you might expect, travel costs also take a big bite out of Santa’s budget. There’s a top-of-the-range 9x4 sleigh in his garage, with a top speed that you can only dream about. It’s got a few miles on the clock, but he still has to insure it for £100,000, paying an annual premium of £5,000. Luckily, he’s the only named driver. And at least there’s no London congestion charge on the night of December 24.
Eco-conscious drivers should be green with envy because Santa’s sleigh is as fuel-efficient they come. The nine reindeer (can you name them?*) enjoy a bag of oats each a day, which comes to £45. They need feeding year-round, of course – which adds £16,425 to Santa’s annual costs.
Thankfully, many of the homes on Santa’s mad-dash trip around the world leave out a carrot or two for Rudolph and his pals – a tasty treat that keeps the energy levels up as the miles flash by. Santa himself harvests a healthy number of mince pies and a positively unhealthy amount of sherry on his rounds.
A few Wiis up his sleeve
And what of the presents? The top two gifts in the UK this Christmas are the Dr Who Cyberman mask for boys (£29.99) and Bratz Diamondz dolls for girls (£24.99). If each child in the UK were to get just one of these, the total cost would be around £330,000,000. As we know, most children are lucky enough to get several presents, and some get expensive gadgetry like X-boxes, Playstations and iPods. This year’s must-have – the Nintendo Wii – costs £180 (if you can find a store that’s got one in stock and you’re prepared to queue overnight to fight for it). But scarcity value means they’re changing hands for £1,000 on the internet. I bet Santa has a few up his sleeve, though.
All in all, it is reckoned by accountants Deloitte that Santa will bring presents worth an astounding £15 billion this year. But if you thought that was the end of his spending, think again. When he gets back to Lapland on Christmas morning, he throws a fantastic party for his helpers. He budgets for £25 a head – another £30,000 on the account.
So there you have it. It takes a bewildering amount of money - some £42 billion - to make Christmas special for the child in all of us that casts an eye to the heavens on Christmas Eve and wonders… But with that bill, he must be magic.
*Santa’s reindeer are: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and of course - Rudolph.