Vapor Trail or Santa Track?

The other night I was taking out the dog for her nightly run when I noticed how lovely the night sky appeared. There was a nearly full moon that was casting a warm glow on the slightly overcast sky. As I stood there looking, a broad whitish line began to appear. My mind went back to my childhood and the story Dad told me about these vapor trails. "That is Santa's sleigh making a trail in the sky", he told me. "You had better be good! He is on his way!" I knew then that all vapor trails were definitely Santa's track! After all, Dad told me this so it had to be true! As I stood there pondering this dubious fact, another thought crossed my mind. I had never in my entire life seen a vapor trail at night. Now this could be only because I am mostly inside at night instead of standing in the middle of the yard staring at the sky, but needless to say, this fascinated me. I mused.."Is this a rarity?" Perhaps the contrails in the daytime are just airplanes spewing out the hot exhaust gases from their engines. Perhaps Dad was mistaken in his identification of this phenomenon. Perhaps he was just trying to make a curious, little girl behave for a little while by whatever means he could. BUT! What about the contrails in the night???? AND! What about those nighttime contrails that are in December??? Scientific deductions must be made!



After much delving into this occurrence, I have come to the conclusion that Dad was so right..this is Santa's sleigh! Think about it...if NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) spends time tracking Santa Claus, then he must be real! If he is real, then it stands to reason that his flying sleigh is real, also! If his flying sleigh is real, he surely has to do test runs to make sure it is in perfect order for the BIG NIGHT! If he is to have test runs, he surely would do those in the evening hours as to not be detected! Aha! That is it! The December 8th vapor trail during the evening hours had to be a test run of the said sleigh! True, the Roly Poly Dude in Red may not have been on board (the elves might be operating the trial run) but surely this was his sleigh. I felt relieved to know that science proved Dad's theory!



Now that the whole situation is settled, we can all sleep well tonight. Santa Claus has a properly operating sleigh and some intelligent elves on the job to assure all will go well on December 24th. Christmas Eve will come and go, the presents will be delivered on time, kiddies will awake to all sorts of wonders, parents will breathe a sigh of relief and my dog will make her usual nighttime run down the hill. Me? I will be watching the sky! For I know what those trails mean! ......."Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why! Santa Claus is coming to town!".... (J.Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie)