Protagonist:
What the hell, Santa's doing Christmas time, flying around in a sled?
In Europe, Santa comes on Dec. 6th bringing gifts to children.

Simple. As an astronomer you should already know this. The rotation of
the earth made it desirable for various nations of the world to agree
on a system of time zones in which there would be a fixed Universal
Time that we could start from, but individual times for various regions
around to world.

It so happens that the time difference between Europe and the USA is 19
days, and that's why, although Santa brings gifts to children in the
USA on the same day he brings them in Europe, it /appears/ to happen 19
days later, which, coincidentally, is Christmas.

Davoud

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usenet *at* davidillig dawt com