Whether you know him as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick or even Kris Kringle, kids across the globe are all hoping they’ve been good enough this year to get a visit from the famous bearded gift-bringer.
So while you impatiently await Christmas Eve, grab a mince pie and check out these eight festive Guinness World Records (GWR) titles related to Santa.
1. Largest surfing lesson (single venue)
Sydney’s Bondi Beach, one of the most famous places to spend Christmas Day (and surf), played host to 320 would-be surfers on 15 December 2015 – a perfect Australian summer’s day.
The impressive gathering was brought together by experience gift retailer RedBalloon, which taught surfing essentials in a 30-minute lesson.
To mark the festive season, all participants wore Santa Claus outfits over swimwear. RedBalloon CEO Nick Baker was awarded a GWR certificate after the attempt and the company donated AUS $2,500 to the charity One Wave, a Bondi surf community that raises awareness about mental health issues.
2. Largest Santa hat
Measuring a whopping 15.47 m (50 ft 9 in) long and 8.23 m (27 ft) wide, the largest Santa hat was created by children from Norway’s Chill Youth Club. The festive headgear, which took a total of three months to construct, was presented in Fredrikstad on 9 December 2008.
3. Fastest time to dress a Santa
The fastest time to dress a Santa is 52.84 seconds and was achieved by Andre Ortolf in Brannenburg, Germany, on 23 December 2016.
If you fancy taking on this challenge yourself here are the key rules (create an application to get the full guidelines):
- The Santa must be dressed in the following traditional costume (in any order) once the time starts: red trousers (with elasticised waist) and a jacket with at least three poppers or buttons (red with white fur trim), white fake beard, a matching red hat with fur trim, a black belt, a pair of black boots (no laces required on these, we suggest wellington boots), white gloves.
- One person is the dresser and the other is the model – but the model is not allowed to help the dresser assemble the outfit!
4. Largest gathering of Santa Claus
An astonishing 18,112 Saint Nicks came together at the Nagar Sakthan Thampuran Ground, Kerala, India, on 27 December 2014. They were taking part in an event organized by Thrissur Citizenry and Thrissur Archdiocese to raise money for local charities.
5. Largest collection of Santa Claus memorabilia
Jean-Guy Laquerre (Canada) has 25,104 different items of Father Christmas memorabilia, as of 30 November 2010, that he has been collecting since 1988.
6. Longest wish list to Santa
The Longest wish list to Santa consists of 121,138 wishes and was created by Macy's (USA) for the Macy's Believe Campaign, in New York, New York, USA, from 1 November-11 December 2014.
7. Largest gathering of Santa's elves
The Largest gathering of Santa's elves is 1,762 and was achieved by Siam Paragon Development Company Limited in Bangkok, Thailand, on 25 November 2014.
8. Largest Santa
The world's largest Santa is 21.08 m (69.16 ft) tall, 9.18 m (30.12 ft) wide and 12.62 m (41.4 ft) deep, achieved by Municipality of Águeda (Portugal), in Águeda, Portugal, on 12 December 2016. The municipality of Águeda attempted this record in order to bring more tourists to the area.
The structure was made with 8 tons of aluminium and iron where 110,000 points of low voltage led light (24volts) were placed.
