Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum Here, the holiday season can be magical, joyous, festive, and expensive, very very expensive. And if you think we mere mortals have a hard time keeping up with the food, shopping, gift giving and otherwise high priced merriment, imagine how Santa Claus feels. Well. A London based company by the name of True Luxury Travel did just that, putting themselves in the shoes of Jolly
ol st Nick and plotting out his Christmas budget. Of course, many holidays are celebrated around this time of year, and consumers who don't even have reindeer tend to spend a lot. According to a Gallop report from earlier in December, of Americans planned to spend an average of eight hundred and sixty seven dollars on gifts this year. This number has held pretty steady since, but it hardly accounts for the time and effort necessary to produce, package, and ship all
those gifts all over the world. While some may believe that all that magic happens through factories and shipping agencies, others know that the real magic happens in the North Pole here's what Santa could be spending to fulfill all those dreams. Okay, there are approximately two billion children in the world, give or take a few hundred million, and because a fair number of non Christians are known to celebrate Christmas, that means that approximately of the world's population
commemorates that day. That adds up to about nine million kids getting gifts on Christmas, and not just one toy each, mind you. Let's set the number of gifts that kids receive that day at a nice, even and arbitrary ten. That means Santa's workshop is churning out approximately nine billion toys, books, and ugly sweaters. Some are more costly to make than others.
But if you assume even a very low two and a half euros per gift, that's twenty two point five billion euros on the whole lot, which is about twenty three point nine billion U S dollars as of this recording. And Santa is good, but he's not a one man show. A true luxury travel estimated that he'd need around one thirty two thousand elves to do all the menial labor in the workshop. And now, of course, we do not have numbers about the wage rates at the North Pole.
But let's take, for example, the federal minimum wage here in the United States, which is seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour. We'd hope that Santa is giving his elves a competitive pay rate and robust benefits package. But even at that bare minimum, if all those elves are working forty hours a week, year round to ensure those gifts go out on Christmas Eve, that's fifteen thousand and eighty dollars per year per elf. For an army of elves, that's about one point nine billion a year.
And again with hope, it's a lot higher. Estimates for the cost of employing a factory worker for a year in North Pole adjacent Finland ranged around forty one thousand euros or over forty three thousand U S dollars including benefits, so it could be completely reasonable to assume three times our initial estimate, or around six billion US dollars. And then you have to keep the workshops lights on and
the heat. The North Pole chill is no joke, and the workshop must be massive and estimated one point two million square feet or about a hundred and eleven thousand square meters and so assuming US prices, the clauses could be shelling out another one point six billion on electricity and two point two million on natural gas, so another one point eight billion total. And let's not forget those reindeer.
The aforementioned travel company relied on the estimated cost of owning a horse to calculate the cost of caring for reindeer. The average cost of maintaining a horse in the US is three thousand, nine hund dollars a year, and Santa
has at least nine reindeer, including Rudolph. Also, if we assume santa sleigh is as expensive to maintain as a luxury car, then he's shelling out at least one thousand, eight hundred dollars a year to keep things running smoothly all told, including a range of other factors including snacks for the staff, but workshop overhead and suit upkeep. True Luxury Travel estimated Santa's yearly budget at forty seven billion US dollars a year. They're not a sponsored, by the way,
they just wrote a delightful blog post. Today's episode is based on the article Santa Claus's workshop budget will blow your mind on how Stuff Works dot com, written by Michelle Konstantinovsky. Brain Stuff it's production of I heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Work dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.