WITHIN THE LAST HOUR Santa Claus has left his delivery depot at the North Pole to begin his 33-hour journey around the world, delivering presents to well-behaved children all over the world.

Weather at the North Pole was snowy – but calm – as Santa left on his sleigh, and elves in Lapland said Santa was in good spirits – and well rested – as he left for his journey with his reindeer.

It is expected that Santa will have presents for about 1.5 billion well-behaved children around the world, and that he will begin his journey around Earth by travelling to New Zealand, where the time is thirteen hours ahead of Ireland and where children have already been asleep for a few hours.

From there he will travel to Australia, and then north towards Japan. He is expected to arrive in Europe at about 9pm tonight Irish time, beginning to make his deliveries in western Russia then before moving closer to Ireland via Germany, France and Britain.

Though air travel in Ireland has been hampered by the cold weather in the last few days, Santa is not expected to have any difficulty travelling on Irish homes; the reindeer have this year been fitted with special socks so as not to slip on icy rooftops.

Santa is also expected to deliver lumps of coal to hundreds of millions of badly-behaved children, and the North Pole has reminded children that their behaviour today and this evening can still have their presents replaced by coal.

Santa’s sleigh will be in contact with his headquarters at the North Pole to share details of children’s behaviour for the entire trip.