I Hope Santa Has a Decent Salary

According to Reuters, whose reporters are apparently looking for things to do this time of year, Santa Clause most likely lives in Iceland. This revelation is based on the fact that 1) Santa must live somewhere north, and 2) when written to in eight countrys, the only response from Santa came from Iceland. Makes sense to me. How could he write back from Finland or Sweden if he's in Iceland? Fool proof.

This begs the question, of course, how much does Santa make? As those of you who have read NegativeMode before know, NegativeMode has been to Iceland (read about that lovely trip here and here, with pictures here), and let me tell you, it is the most expensive place on Earth. I won't go into that again, because I know I've mentioned how expensive it is there at least 15 times on this blog, but really, how does Santa afford it? He's not salaried that I'm aware of. My only guess is that he drives the $80 "supersaver" shuttle from the airport to Reykjavik. Now that's quite a racket. No way he's getting that fat in the land of $30 pizzas and $20 chicken breasts without a cushy, well-paying job. Also, I'd like to point out that I didn't see Santa once when I was there, but that's probably because according to the Reuters article, he lives in Dimmuborgir, a remote area of northern Iceland, that I did not have the pleasure of visiting.

Finally, I'd recommend reading the article, if for nothing else than to laugh at the silly Nordic nations that are a fussin' and a feudin' as to in whose country Santa actually lives (even though St. Nicholas actually lived in present day Turkey).

For those of you that can't read, here is an image of a South Korean postman Santa that has nothing to do with the story, but that Reuters decided should be on the same page (I do admit, it's an amusing picture):