Ford is offering to make this a greener Christmas with a concept sleigh that would dramatically downsize Santa's carbon footprint.
Santa's new ride would allow Rudolph and friends to enjoy a well-deserved retirement while Santa makes his annual deliveries in an environmentally friendly new sleigh.
Ford car designer Paul Wraith said: “They may look cute, but Santa's team of nine reindeer create a staggering 214 670 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions each year, so something had to be done.”
The benefits of switching to the concept sleigh go beyond the environmental. Travelling such huge distances - about 200 237 360km - means Santa currently spends the equivalent R1.6 billion on carrots to fuel his reindeer each year. The one-litre powered EcoSleigh would cut that by nearly 90 percent to R150 million.
Santa himself was unavailable for comment but Mrs Claus said: “I'm not looking forward to telling Donner and Blitzen the news, but the polar bears at the North Pole will certainly welcome a more eco-friendly sleigh.
She added: “Of course, I'm in favour of anything that means my husband can get home a bit quicker. Getting presents to all the good children each year more quickly may even give him time to reconsider a few names on the naughty list - but I can't promise.”
Wraith said: “Our tongue may be firmly in cheek as we launch this sleigh design, but our heart is in the right place.
“At Ford, we're dreaming of a Green Christmas; we're already thinking of the Concept Sleigh Mark II. Electric-vehicle battery technology is developing all the time and we're keen to get to work on a zero-carbon version.”
The redesigned sleigh also has:
Active Park Assist: First checks if a parking space is big enough, then automatically steers your car/sleigh in. Useful for Santa in making those tight reverse rooftop landings.
Door Edge Protector: A simple, but ingenious method that helps prevent dents, dings and scratches even in the tightest parking spot. Vital to help Santa stop scratching the door of his sleigh on all those annoying chimneys.
SYNC: An in-car, voice-activated system that can help Santa keep in touch with the elves back at base, stay en route with GPS navigation and enable him to listen to and change, his favourite Christmas music.
EcoMode: In-car software that provides useful advice for drivers on achieving better fuel economy tailored to their individual driving styles. A specially modified version of the software will include an electronic Christmas tree image. The better Santa's green driving performance, the more of the tree's branch symbols will light-up.
Active City Stop and Blind Spot Information: The first assists drivers in slow moving traffic by detecting if the car in front unexpectedly stops and braking automatically in response; the second helps detect vehicles in blind spots during normal driving. Both will be useful to Santa, as he tries to avoid planes in our increasingly crowded skies.
MyKey: Enabling car owners to encourage their teenagers (or elves) to drive safer and more fuel efficiently, with increased safety-belt usage, through a range of driver-specific configurable features.
DID YOU KNOW?
Santa's nine reindeer are: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph.
Before the now infamous red snowsuit - created by Thomas Nast and popularised by Coca Cola - Saint Nicholas was more often associated with a green snowsuit.