I'm back. All goodies collected! I'm not going to be able to play on the pogo stick. It really is for tiny tots. I'm not a tiny tot anymore.
Jean, I did see Woman in Black, but wasn't that impressed, but in all honesty, I was busy doing other stuff whilst attempting to watch it, so I may have missed vital bits. Will give it another go, and my full attention!
Oh Lottie, I just laughed at your bike/other half story. Bet you weren't pleased at the time!
jo, don't mention wrapping paper. As her birthday is just 3 days before, I have to buy both, and get terribly confused about what I bought for B'day and Christmas.
Pam, try glancing at the kiddies channels. More adverts for toys than the actual programmes them selves. Sick of hearing 'I wish I had one of them!' And I'm totally ignoring the 'Santa isn't real' comment! You've been brainwashed!
Gary, Gary, Gary. I don't know why you seem to think Jess would have all the latest gadgets. The laptop she potters around on is an acient dinosaur even she gets frustarted with as it's that slow. Also bought off ebay for a silly low price. I couldn't justify paying that amount of money on one toy for a 3/4 year old. In fact the price shown for that will cover both her birthday and Christmas presents this year.
The comments underneath the article just about sum it all up. 'Toys' like that are for parents who can't be bothered playing with their kids. They are just electronic babysitters. I have upstairs roughly 10 board games I have bought for her this year, all 2 player so we can both sit and play for hours, which she loves.But your fork, propogator and gloves are excellent suggestions.
I actually cocked up a bit yesterday. I put 2 bids on 2 scooters, and forgot about the other one. And I've won that as well, also 99p.
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.
Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming That each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting Santa himself. on land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.
The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g’s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he’s dead now.
I went to bed one Christmas Eve rather the worse for wear!
Somebody awoke before 'the delivery', but 'Mother' Christmas had already been & drunk all the sherry so another glass was needed & why did I drink that one too?
Daughter makes OH a box of 'goodies' every yr now. Silly things like a book of paper airoplane models- still some left, another sudoku book, his favourite nibbles, etc. Not a sock nor hankie in sight. She said she's got all the bits for this yr. Her 'stocking' too could end up as a pillowcase again this year!
Am being 'good' & flopped watching whatever is on tv/taped. The sun has actually arrived, so will go to sort out feeder next. A squirrel has been 'rooting' in my Hellebore pot. J.
Thanks Caz. I'll give her one for her birthday, and then Santa must have known she wanted one, and got her the other!
jo, we do similar for the adults. More novelty, silly stuff, that makes us smile. Although my Dad wasn't impressed with his 'Bald Mans Comb' last year!
It has been a foul day here weatherwise - raining ,dark,gloomy..........I have finished wrapping all the childrens' christmas presents- just a couple more to arrive
Luckily our nephew is a plumber and heating engineer - he is going to pop in to have a look at the boiler - Barry is convinced it is a valve gone wrong .We have a lovely gas fire in the sitting room and an emersion heater so won't be cold or have no hot water
When our boys were small ( they are 47,45 and 44 now) we didn't have much money and there weren't car boots or ebay - I used to go and pay some money each week in the sports shop in the village in the run up to Christmas to pay for a football kit for our youngest son who was sport mad. Middle son's music teacher helped us choose a trombone one year and I paid for that weekly till Christmas - this son is now an acoustics consultant Our eldest son was into bird watching,stargazing and metal detecting so one year had a telescope,another year a metal detector
These days we only buy presents for our Grandchildren and try to keep to a budget - try being the word - I always go over as I love buying them presents
I always get a carrier bag full of goodies from youngest Son and DIL - all bought from car boots They do buy me something really nice ,too
Well, he'll never need a proper one any more Geoff!
Pam, you just reminded me I picked up a leaflet for a Christmas Savings club from the Post Office the other day. Must find that and have a look. For next year!
My mum always used to have a hamper as well. We used to love it when it was delivered, taking everything out and seeing what goodies there were in it!
Posts
I'm back. All goodies collected!
I'm not going to be able to play on the pogo stick. It really is for tiny tots. I'm not a tiny tot anymore. 
Jean, I did see Woman in Black, but wasn't that impressed, but in all honesty, I was busy doing other stuff whilst attempting to watch it, so I may have missed vital bits. Will give it another go, and my full attention!
Oh Lottie, I just laughed at your bike/other half story. Bet you weren't pleased at the time!
jo, don't mention wrapping paper. As her birthday is just 3 days before, I have to buy both, and get terribly confused about what I bought for B'day and Christmas.
Pam, try glancing at the kiddies channels. More adverts for toys than the actual programmes them selves. Sick of hearing 'I wish I had one of them!'
And I'm totally ignoring the 'Santa isn't real' comment! You've been brainwashed! 
Gary, Gary, Gary. I don't know why you seem to think Jess would have all the latest gadgets. The laptop she potters around on is an acient dinosaur even she gets frustarted with as it's that slow. Also bought off ebay for a silly low price. I couldn't justify paying that amount of money on one toy for a 3/4 year old. In fact the price shown for that will cover both her birthday and Christmas presents this year.
The comments underneath the article just about sum it all up. 'Toys' like that are for parents who can't be bothered playing with their kids. They are just electronic babysitters. I have upstairs roughly 10 board games I have bought for her this year, all 2 player so we can both sit and play for hours, which she loves.But your fork, propogator and gloves are excellent suggestions.
I actually cocked up a bit yesterday. I put 2 bids on 2 scooters, and forgot about the other one. And I've won that as well, also 99p.
Does Santa really exist?
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.
Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming That each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting Santa himself. on land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.
The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g’s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he’s dead now.
Merry Christmas
Geoff.
It doesn't work like that. He is magic. 
Well done Becks
- I think the thing that kids value more than anything is your time and undivided attention. Jess is a lucky little girl.
I went to bed one Christmas Eve rather the worse for wear!
Somebody awoke before 'the delivery', but 'Mother' Christmas had already been & drunk all the sherry
so another glass was needed & why did I drink that one too?
Daughter makes OH a box of 'goodies' every yr now. Silly things like a book of paper airoplane models- still some left, another sudoku book, his favourite nibbles, etc. Not a sock nor hankie in sight. She said she's got all the bits for this yr. Her 'stocking' too could end up as a pillowcase again this year!
Am being 'good' & flopped watching whatever is on tv/taped. The sun has actually arrived, so will go to sort out feeder next. A squirrel has been 'rooting' in my Hellebore pot.
J.
Thanks Caz. I'll give her one for her birthday, and then Santa must have known she wanted one, and got her the other!
jo, we do similar for the adults. More novelty, silly stuff, that makes us smile. Although my Dad wasn't impressed with his 'Bald Mans Comb' last year!
Is that one present your dad will never part with?
Afternoon everyone
It has been a foul day here weatherwise - raining ,dark,gloomy..........I have finished wrapping all the childrens' christmas presents- just a couple more to arrive
Luckily our nephew is a plumber and heating engineer - he is going to pop in to have a look at the boiler - Barry is convinced it is a valve gone wrong .We have a lovely gas fire in the sitting room and an emersion heater so won't be cold or have no hot water
When our boys were small ( they are 47,45 and 44 now) we didn't have much money and there weren't car boots or ebay - I used to go and pay some money each week in the sports shop in the village in the run up to Christmas to pay for a football kit for our youngest son who was sport mad.
Middle son's music teacher helped us choose a trombone one year and I paid for that weekly till Christmas - this son is now an acoustics consultant 
Our eldest son was into bird watching,stargazing and metal detecting so one year had a telescope,another year a metal detector 
These days we only buy presents for our Grandchildren and try to keep to a budget - try being the word - I always go over as I love buying them presents
I always get a carrier bag full of goodies from youngest Son and DIL - all bought from car boots
They do buy me something really nice ,too 
Congratulations on your news Lottie
I am a great great Aunt
Pam LL x
Well, he'll never need a proper one any more Geoff!
Pam, you just reminded me I picked up a leaflet for a Christmas Savings club from the Post Office the other day. Must find that and have a look. For next year!
My mum always used to have a hamper as well. We used to love it when it was delivered, taking everything out and seeing what goodies there were in it!
Those hampers always contained a tin of" Ye Olde Oak Ham"-with jelly