BENTONVILLE, Ark., Nov. 20, 2007 – Wal-Mart today announced that Santa Claus will make a series of appearances at more than 3,000 Wal-Mart Supercenters and discount stores across the country beginning November 24.
During his visits to Wal-Mart, the retailer estimates that Santa will personally visit with more than 1.6 million children over the next three weekends in its stores.
Additionally, children posing with Santa will receive a free 5” x 7” holiday photo keepsake, taken by a Wal-Mart associate and developed onsite.
“We’re committed to saving people money so they can have a merrier Christmas with their friends and family,” said Lori Kumar, Wal-Mart’s divisional merchandise manager for photo processing. “Offering free photos with Santa is one more way parents can save at Wal-Mart this Christmas. And with most mall kiosk Santa photos costing $10 or more, we’re expecting to save American families at least $5 million over the next three weekends on these photo keepsakes.”
Santa Claus will make an appearance at all Wal-Mart Supercenters and stores on Nov. 24 and 25 and Dec. 1, 2, 8 and 9, visiting with children between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Customers can also purchase additional prints of the photo at the store’s digital photo center or order a variety of specialty products that feature the image, including posters, ornaments, Christmas cards, and over 100 different gift items.
Making time to appear at Wal-Mart in the run-up to Christmas is no problem compared to the workload he faces on Christmas Eve.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west.
According to scientific data posted on the internet, Santa will visit 91.8 million homes, which works out to 822.6 visits per second, or 1/1,000th of a second for each household. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth, his total trip will be 75.5 million miles, which means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second – 3,000 times the speed of sound!
Carrying out this task (and appearing in Wal-Mart) shows why Santa is magic.
* While supplies last
About Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT)
Every week, millions of customers visit Wal-Mart Stores, Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets, and Sam’s Club locations across America. The company and its Foundation are committed to a philosophy of giving back locally. Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) is proud to support the causes that are important to customers and associates right in their own neighborhoods, and last year gave more than $270 million to local United States communities. To learn more, visit www.walmartfacts.com, www.walmart.com, or www.walmartfoundation.org.
