Dear Ernest,

When Christmas is over, does Santa lose weight and get skinny or does he stay the same size all year long? Also, how many elves are there at the North Pole?

Thanks,
David, age 7

Hi David,

Santa's pretty regular with his weight. He doesn't think it's good for his health to be adding and losing weight all the time so Santa keeps it pretty steady.

Santa may be a big man but one of the things that many people don't realize is that Santa is really into sports. He just loves games of all types and, for a big guy AND an old guy let me tell you, Santa moves pretty fast.

He skies both on snow and water and he loves even rough sports like football and hockey. Santa is an excellent skater. He plays baseball as often as he can (he even has his own batting cages but he refuses to pitch to elves, because our strike zone is too small). Santa also loves to dance and he regularly jogs too.

As for the elves at the North Pole, well, there are thousands. And there are hundreds of thousands more spread out across the world. A lot of people think that Santa works with lots of magic and while that might be true he will be the first one to tell you that he has a lot of help too.

An elf can be any shape or size, any color or nationality, and have as much or as little education as anyone else. The main qualification to be an elf is to have love in your heart. So, as you might imagine, Santa has lots of elves everywhere.

The elves make a pretty big crowd when we get together here at the North Pole. But we like it that way cause it's more fun doing this stuff together.

Have a great Christmas, David!