As you get set for the festive season with plenty of warmth for the fire, don’t forget that there may be someone else who wants to use your chimney on Christmas Eve. Santa Claus has been dropping down the chimney for centuries bringing presents and spreading Christmas cheer… but where did he come from, and how does he pull off the mother of all delivery rounds every year?

Christmas fireplace checklist

Before you settle in for a cosy Christmas by the fire, here are a few quick wins that make a real difference to warmth, cleanliness and peace of mind:

• Burn dry fuel: Choose Ready to Burn logs (≤20% moisture) so they light more easily and burn cleaner.
  Shop: Kiln-Dried Logs & Heat Logs (Ready to Burn) 
  Read: What is the Woodsure Ready to Burn Scheme?

• If you’re in a Smoke Control Area: use authorised smokeless fuels (and follow your local rules).
  Shop: Smokeless Fuels
  Guide: Smokeless Fuel Buying Guide   

• Order in time: check kerbside delivery and access requirements so everything arrives smoothly.
  Delivery: Delivery Information

• Simple safety checks: make sure your room has ventilation, your CO alarm is working, and your appliance/chimney is maintained in line with the manufacturer guidance.

Santa comes from Turkey!

You really couldn’t make it up: Santa, or Saint Nick as he was known then, is said to have started life in what is now Türkiye in the 3rd century — the country, not the Christmas dinner.

Over the years, the legend developed across Europe, including stories of a generous gift-giver who threw coins through windows for children as they slept. Eventually, as people started sealing doors and windows against the cold, Santa had little choice but to use the chimney as his way in… and he’s stuck with it ever since (and occasionally got stuck in it, too).

And despite centuries of ho-ho-history, the Santa we all know today — the famous red suit included — is largely a modern popular image that was helped along by 1930s advertising, rather than being a single “ancient” depiction. Before that, he was often shown in different colours (including green).

Santa’s magic

If you ever doubt the magic of Santa Claus, you just have to look at the numbers (even if the estimates are tongue-in-cheek).

His total delivery round has been estimated at 212,030,000 miles, visiting 378 million kids in around 150 million homes. Even gaining time by flying west, he still only has around 32 hours maximum to make the trip.

That means he’d need to travel at roughly 640 miles per second and visit around 1,300 homes every tick of the clock. So unless he can land, slide down the chimney, deliver the presents, eat the mince pie, drink the sherry, get back out again and take off in 0.00077 of a second, he simply has to be magic.

And that’s before you consider the mince pies and glasses of sherry he has to consume en route. At 46 billion calories, that’s like eating a Big Mac every second for over 70 years.

Yule fuel

As a leading fuel supplier, the one secret we’d love to know at Dawsons Fuels is how Santa manages his fuel bills. To get around all the good boys and girls as fast as he needs to, some calculations suggest he’d need to burn around 1,400 trillion gigajoules of energy.

That’s more than double the annual fuel consumption of the whole world. So whatever festive magic the big man uses, it’s well beyond even Dawsons Fuels’ impressive stocks.

One quick (non-magic) note: if you’ve historically called it “coal”, it’s worth knowing that traditional house coal has been phased out for domestic home heating in England, so the modern, compliant choice is authorised smokeless fuel (especially important in smoke control areas). If you’re stocking up for Christmas, you can browse:

• Kiln-dried logs & heat logs (Ready to Burn)

• Smokeless fuels

Whatever festive magic the big man uses, we hope he brings you and yours a very merry Christmas. Have a fabulous festive season by the fire, and a warm and cosy New Year, from all the team at Dawsons Fuels.

Quick links

• Shop logs & heat logs: https://dawsonsfuels.co.uk/collections/kiln-dried-logs-and-heat-logs

• Shop smokeless fuels: https://dawsonsfuels.co.uk/collections/smokeless-fuels

• Delivery information: https://dawsonsfuels.co.uk/pages/delivery-information

• What is Ready to Burn?: https://dawsonsfuels.co.uk/blogs/guides/what-is-the-woodsure-ready-to-burn-scheme