Santa's Workshop News

Rodrigo from Havana, Cuba Dear Santa, My name is Rodrigo and I am thirteen years old. I live in Havana, Cuba. We do not officially celebrate Christmas here the way other countries do — it was banned for a long time, though they allow some of it now, depending on who is watching. My grandmother has always celebrated it in secret, with a candle and a prayer and sometimes a small gift she made herself. She says Christmas belongs to the people and no government can permanently take away what belongs to the people. I believe her. I have heard that 2026 is America's 250th birthday. In school we are taught that America is an imperialist country that exploits poor nations and that everything bad in Cuba is America's fault. But my uncle who left for Miami in 2003 calls us every week on a phone he sent us, and he does not sound like a man living in an exploited country. He sounds like a man who cannot stop talking about his small business, his neighborhood, his freedom to say what he...

Archie  from Leeds, England Dear Santa, My name is Archie and I am thirteen years old. I live in Leeds, England, which my grandad says used to make all the wool for the whole British Empire, which I think is brilliant even if there is no longer a British Empire and the wool mills are now mostly flats. Santa, I need your help settling a fashion argument that has been going on in my friend group for three weeks and is causing serious problems. The argument is about Polo Ralph Lauren. My friend Connor says wearing a Ralph Lauren polo shirt is just showing off and trying to be posh, which he says with the specific tone of someone who secretly wants one. My friend Priya says it is a classic piece of well-made clothing and there is nothing wrong with appreciating quality. My friend Dom says it doesn't matter what it is because the logo is "played out," which he says about everything now because he read one article about fashion and considers himself an expert. I have severa...

Merry Christmas Images Dear Santa, My name is Sofia and I am eleven years old. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, where it is sunny and seventy degrees on Christmas Day every single year, which means our Christmas card pictures never have snow in them, which my cousin in Minnesota thinks is "not real Christmas," which I find extremely rude considering Phoenix has been around a lot longer than my cousin's opinion. For school we have to make a Christmas image for the art show and I started looking up "Merry Christmas images" online for ideas and there were millions of them and they all looked kind of the same — same red, same snow, same you, basically — and I started wondering why. I have three questions. Why do almost all Christmas images look the same, even though Christmas is celebrated so many different ways around the world? Why does Arizona have so many deserts and cactuses when other states do not? Why do certain images become "the" image of someth...

Lena from Ohio Asks Santa About Christmas Markets Dear Santa, My name is Lena and I am eleven years old. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and every December my family goes to the Cincinnati Christkindlmarkt downtown, where we drink hot chocolate and my dad always tries the bratwurst and says it is "almost as good as the real thing" even though he has never actually been to Germany, which my mom points out every single year and he ignores every single year. I have three questions. Where did Christmas markets actually come from and are they as old as they seem? Why do so many German towns claim to have "the oldest" Christmas market, and how do we know which one is really first? Why did European countries split into Catholic and Protestant regions, and did that affect how Christmas is celebrated? Thank you. Lena Marie Hoffmann Cincinnati, Ohio Dear Lena, Your father's annual bratwurst claim and your mother's annual correction of it is, I will tell you, o...

  Can you tell me about the Capitol Christmas Tree? Maya From Washington, D.C. Dear Santa, My name is Maya and I am ten years old. I live in Washington, D.C., which my dad says is the only city in America that is not actually part of any state, which I find slightly unfair to D.C. but also kind of cool, like we are our own thing. Every year my class takes a field trip to see the Capitol Christmas Tree and this year I had a lot of questions about it that nobody on the trip could answer. I have three questions. Why does the Capitol Christmas Tree come from a different state every single year instead of just staying the same tree like a normal Christmas tree? Why doesn't Washington, D.C. get to vote for president like the fifty states do, even though the Capitol is right here? Where exactly is Idaho, where this year's tree is from, and why is it shaped so strangely? Thank you. Maya Renee Thompson Washington, D.C. Dear Maya, A ten-year-old who notices that D.C. is ...

Nadia from Jakarta, Indonesia Wants to Know the Purpose of Christmas Dear Santa, My name is Nadia and I am eleven years old. I live in Jakarta, Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world by population, which my teacher told us with what I think was pride. My family is Muslim. We do not celebrate Christmas, but my apartment building has a Christmas tree in the lobby every December because some of our neighbours are Christian, and my best friend Clara is Catholic and her family invited me to see their nativity scene last year, which was beautiful and which I had many questions about. I have several questions for you. What is the actual purpose of Christmas? Why is Indonesia made of so many islands and how many are there really? Why do some countries have one main religion and others have many? Thank you. Nadia Putri Wijaya Jakarta, Indonesia Dear Nadia, A Muslim girl in Jakarta who went to see her Catholic friend's nativity scene and came away with genuine questio...

  How Fast Is Santa's Sleigh? How fast is Santa's sleigh? To deliver gifts to children all around the world in a single night, Santa's sleigh has to move faster than any aircraft, faster than sound, and faster than the human mind can easily picture. The exact speed is one of the North Pole's best-kept secrets, but a little thought about the size of the task reveals just how astonishing that velocity has to be. The speed is not about showing off. It exists for one reason: to make sure no child anywhere is ever missed. The math behind the miracle Consider the scale. There are hundreds of millions of homes to visit, spread across every continent and ocean, and only a single night to reach them all. Even if Santa spent the briefest possible moment at each stop, the distances between them would still require a sleigh that covers enormous stretches of the globe in the blink of an eye. Ordinary travel simply cannot account for it. This is where Christmas folklore offers its an...