Christmas Eve: how many sherries and mince pies will Santa get through in Liverpool and UK?

Father Christmas will drink 2,865 litres of sherry and consume 12.5 million calories from mince pies if every house with children in Liverpool leaves him out the traditional festive snacks tonight.

And if that sounds like a lot, as he races across the whole of the UK, Santa will drink 407,000 litres of booze and eat 1.8 billion calories!

LiverpoolWorld has carried out some very scientific number crunching to find out just how excessive a night is in store for old Kris Kringle while households in the city are sleeping on Christmas Eve.

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.

How many sherries will Santa be drinking?

Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates put the number of households with children across Liverpool at 57,300 as of 2021.

Sherry typically has a strength of 17.5% ABV – at least that is according to a scan of the offering on shelves at major UK supermarkets.

That would mean that if every household with children in Liverpool leaves him a 50 ml serving, Santa can expect to guzzle his way through 50,138 units during his travels through the city tonight. That is more than 3,581 times his recommended weekly limit of 14 units. If everybody opted to leave him a stronger 20% glass, he would be 4,093 times over the weekly threshold.

In total, Father Christmas will be getting through 2,864 litres of liquor, the equivalent of over 35 bath tubs full.

What about mince pies?

We have also crunched the numbers on the 57,300 mince pies Santa might find himself tucking into, to find out what it means for his waistline – and we can only assume he will be joining the rest of us in signing up for a gym membership come 1 January.

All those pies will equate to 12.5 million 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 almost 6,274 times more than his recommended intake – or enough calories to last him 17 years, even before you take into account the calories in his liquid refreshments.

In terms of sugar content, these mince pies contain 840,878 grams, or about 169,000 rounded teaspoons’s worth. And when it comes to fat, he can expect to consume 457,000 grams.

Let’s assume Santa is 5’10’’ tall and 15 stone (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 over 72 times his body weight in fat.

As mentioned earlier, in the UK alone, Father Christmas will drink 407,000 litres of sherry and consume 1.8 billion calories from mince pies. And he has more than 190 other countries to visit too!

Those poor, poor reindeer.