Christmas Eve: How many sherries and mince pies will Santa get through in Mansfield and Ashfield?

Your Chad’s owner NationalWorld has carried out some very scientific number-crunching to find out just how excessive a night is in store for old Kris Kringle..

Boys and girls in the UK traditionally leave out a mince pie and a glass of sherry to help their favourite gift-giver through his delivery shift, alongside a carrot for Rudolph – although some might opt for milk, or even a distinctively non-traditional pint of beer.

Mum and dad’s tastes have no bearing on what is left out, of course.

Office for National Statistics estimates put the number of households with children across the UK at 8.1m as of 2021, including 28,900 across Mansfield and Ashfield.

Sherry typically has a strength of 17.5 per cent ABV, so if every household with children in Mansfield and Ashfeld leaves him a 50 ml serving, Santa can expect to guzzle his way through 25,288 units during his festive travels – that’s 1,445 litres, the equivalent of more than 18 bathtubs full.

Then there is the number of mince pies Santa might find himself tucking into and what that will mean for his waistline.

If Santa has a mince pie at all 29,800 homes with children in Mansfield and Ashfield, it will equate to more than 6.3m calories based on average of own-brand mince pies at Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.

Adult men typically need about 2,000 calories per day.

That means Santa will be eating more than 3,000 times his recommended intake – or enough calories to last him eight years, even before you take into account the calories in his liquid refreshments.

He’ll also be consuming 423.8 kilograms of sugar and 230.4kg of fat.

Let’s assume Santa is 5ft 10in and 15 stones – the minimum weight needed to classify the famously portly fellow as obese on Body Mass Index charts – this would mean he is set to eat 36 times his body weight in fat.

Doubtless, he will be joining the rest of us taking out a gym membership on January 1...