Explanation [ edit ]

This was the Christmas comic for 2014 and broadly speaking, this comic follows a long list of issues raised about physical limitations Santa Claus faces, similar to other popular theoretical discussions such as the speed he has to travel and the omniscience he purportedly possesses and the mass of presents he has to carry — the story of Santa Claus was simply never designed for a world with over 7 billion people spread through untold millions of homes. This comic combines some basic physiology with the physical law of the conservation of mass.

More specifically, this comic refers to the common tradition of leaving milk and cookies out on Christmas Eve for Santa Claus. If one assumes that Santa eats even a small percentage of the sweets left out for him, the question comes up where all the cookies go. Megan suggests that, since Santa isn't that large, he must poop them out somewhere, and wonders if he does so in our houses.

Cueball doubts that. Megan replies that mass cannot disappear completely; it has to go somewhere, to which Cueball comments that Santa has a magic bag in which he could poop. The magic bag referenced is the bag in which he carries all the Christmas presents he delivers on Christmas Eve. It is called 'magic' because a bag large enough to carry billions of presents would be much too heavy and unbalanced to carry on a sleigh pulled by only eight (or nine) reindeer. Thus, it must be magic somehow. Megan is disgusted at the thought of Santa pooping on peoples' presents. An even more disgusting explanation is that the 'magic' bag might transform the poop into presents, in which case it would not need to carry many presents at a time.

Cueball proposes a third theory: that Santa only poops in a few houses, leaving large quantities in those houses. Megan says that there may not be anyone that naughty in the world, referencing the myth that Santa will leave coal instead of presents for those who misbehave. Cueball replies that it is randomly determined whose house is pooped in, burdening a smaller number of people. Specifically, Cueball quotes the beginning of Spock's aphorism from Star Trek II, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." The quote is used to justify the sacrifice people make in "allowing" Santa to poop in their homes by citing the numerous other people who are spared his feces.

The title text puts forth yet another theory: that Santa doesn't poop in houses at all, but off the side of his sleigh. This may be equally disgusting to anyone or anything unlucky enough to abruptly receive a rain of poop from the sky. This problem could be minimized by taking advantage of flights over water or uninhabited areas, rather than cities.

According to 1070: Words for Small Sets, a few is referring to "anywhere from 2 to 5". Currently, there are 1.9 billion children in the world, so assuming on average that one cookie is left for Santa for each child and that Santa eats one in every 5 cookies, he consumes 380 million cookies in two 48 hour periods. Due to the convenience of time zones, approximately 48 hours from when a day starts in Kiritimati until it ends in Hawaii; also, most western Christians, including Roman Catholics and Protestants, observe Christmas almost two weeks before Eastern Orthodox Christians do. According to Google, a chocolate-chip cookie contains approximately 140 kilocalories, therefore Santa consumes 53.2 billion kilocalories in the period of 2 days, or 26.6 billion kilocalories per day. As the average human daily intake is 2500 kilocalories per day, Santa has eaten 10,640,000 times the amount of daily kilocalories required by one human over the period of two days, an amount otherwise sufficient to last for over 59,111 years for a human, and producing 20 million pounds of feces. However, if we consider the dietary requirements of both Santa and the flying reindeer, and the kilocalories that reindeer would burn flying around the world carrying 1.9 billion toys, the cookies might not be sufficient. If the 1 in 5 cookies are not sufficient energy intake, Santa could probably eat every cookie left for him, which amounts to 266 billion kilocalories in the period of 2 days.

On a side note, this amount of energy is enough to power several thousand homes for a year.

Transcript [ edit ]

Megan: Say Santa eats a cookie at every few houses. That's hundreds of tons. By the end of the night, he should be a hulking seven-story behemoth. But he's not.

Cueball: What are you... Megan: Does Santa poop in our houses?

Cueball: No way. Megan: That mass must be going somewhere. Cueball: He has that magic bag... Megan: You think he poops in the bag of presents?

Cueball: Maybe instead of pooping in every few houses, he waits, and then in a few houses, he poops a lot. Megan: What if no one's been that naughty? Cueball: He picks at random. The needs of the many...

Trivia [ edit ]

Although this is the only "real" Christmas comic to come out around Christmas, the next comic could be seen as a possible item that would be on xkcd fans Christmas wishlist... the xkcd Phone 2.





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