It doesn’t matter what you believe, how old you are or how commercialized you think the holidays have become, there is just something about a jolly and benevolent person with a long white beard in a red and white suit handing out presents that appeals to most of us. For all of the bad press the media gets, the one thing they do right, in my opinion, is to broadcast Santa’s progress on Christmas Eve as part of the weather report as he makes his way from the North Pole to the homes of boys and girls across North America. On an intellectual level of course I know that Santa Claus is a mythical fabrication. But on some other level that I have no words for, Santa Claus embodies the best of us as human beings – our kindness, compassion, a desire to make a better world and hope.

So, whether or not I’ve been naughty or nice during the year, there is still something inside me that expects a visit from old St. Nick. After returning from university and moving into my very own apartment for the first time, I mentioned in a rather wistful voice to my parents that Christmas won’t be the same now that Santa Claus can’t come down the chimney because of where I’ll be living. My parents assured me that Santa had his ways; and besides, I had an electric fireplace, a much welcomed hand-me-down from my grandmother as a house warming (literally) gift.

Okay, I’ll bite – how does St. Nick get past a fireplace that doesn’t have a chimney? I was assured that I didn’t need to know the details; that Santa Claus would arrive as per usual no matter where I was living. Sure enough, when I returned from a Christmas Eve house party I had attended, a bulging, overstuffed stocking hung from the fireplace mantel and there were presents underneath my little Charlie-Brown-like tree (a cast-off artificial Christmas tree all bent out of shape that had I rescued from a friend who was upgrading). It appeared that Santa Claus had indeed managed to overcome the obstacle of a chimney-less electric fireplace.

I am sure that there are other people out there like me who wonder how Santa delivered a stocking and brightly wrapped presents to my first apartment without the help of either a chimney or a wood burning fireplace. After researching the topic extensively, I discovered that he uses various methods to circumnavigate the ever-growing popularity of electric fireplaces all over the world.

As it happens, there are four main ways Santa Claus works his Christmas magic.

• Very carefully – the first tried and true method involves utmost caution due to the enclosed nature of the firebox.

• He’s actually very skinny. The padding isn’t real; it’s just for show. How do you think he got down chimneys of wood burning fireplaces for the past several centuries?
• He enters by the window next to the electric fireplace.
• The same as he always does, by placing his finger on the side of his nose and levitating.

The truth of how St. Nick broke into my apartment to hang up my Christmas stocking from the mantel of my electric fireplace is a little more prosaic. Earlier that year, when I took a couple of weeks off to go to the beach with friends, I gave an extra key to my parents to take care of my plants while I was away. Still, I don’t suppose it does me any harm to believe, even after all these years that he somehow managed to get down a chimney that wasn’t there. After all, he is Santa Claus.