'Father Christmas.'

'How does He do It?

Do you know that there is now an app to track the movements of Father Christmas, but I would rather still believe that He will appear and disappear as he always has done every Christmas season. Tradition has added many things to the Saint Nicholas story, of a Greek Monk making gifts for children.

Much of what has become traditional is to do with snowy northern-Europe and the introduction of reindeer pulling a heavy laden sled. In Russia He is known as father frost and many of the tunes associated with him like jingle bells originated there.

When one watches Star trek and similar sci-fi, it is easy to picture some alien ability to move through time and space with immunity. But for many of us back here on earth, we have been told it is a myth because it is an impossibility.

The whole story of Christmas has to do really with the birth of the baby Jesus and the celebrations of His arrival into our world. Father Christmas is really God showing kindness to children who have been good throughout the year and Santa moves in the supernatural, very much like Jesus in his conception and birth, death and resurrection.

Santas Sled.

Humans have followed Santa over the years and developed the sled for moving across ice, from dogs to reindeer. Meanwhile since the development of the petrol engine the sled is now motorized. The use of the sled is a daily means of transport mostly for the Eskimo and Evenki peoples living in the northern regions of Canada, Alaska, Russia, Norway, Greenland, and Iceland. But there are many aircraft and helicopters that have been adapted to take skis or sleds to work in this environment. 

I wonder were the legends of Santa with his sled come from, perhaps from a Lapp style people, who pull their houses by reindeer on sleds in N-Russia. Santa's sled is much different from anything that we could invent, his sled has to move, fly at hypersonic speeds to deliver presents to an estimated two billion children world-wide in 24 hours. I think if you do get to see him this Christmas, you must really be very privileged. ''HAPPY CHRISTMAS.''