How many reindeer does Santa have?

Well, he has eight reindeer.

How do you know that?

It's something grown-ups know. It's in songs and books and stuff.


That was the conversation A and I had as we were leaving nursery today. The boys were only there for a few hours, just so I could get some last-minute Christmas stuff done.

From there we headed up to Tesco to pick up a few things, including a carrot for Santa's reindeer. Except that I now understood the nature of A's earlier question -- he wanted to know how many reindeer Santa has so he knew how many carrots to buy. You can't just buy one, after all.

M's nursery teacher had prepared little Santa bags for all the kids and had an extra one. Each contained a mince pie, a Christmas ornament, reindeer 'dust', a festive napkin and, of course, a carrot. So Santa got our eight carrots plus the extra two. And I'm sure he, and his reindeer, will be quite pleased.