Robert DeGeorge, age 7, of North Lima, Ohio, for his question:

DO REINDEER REALLY FLY?

For many years Christmas was observed only as areligious festival. It commemorated Christ's birth. But then gradually the people adopted more and more customs unrelated to the church to help celebrate the festive day. In England and other European countries during the Middle Ages, Christmas became the merriest and most enthusiastically celebrated day of the year.

In the year 7643 the Puritans in Europe, who regarded the celebration of Christmas as pagan, outlawed the observance. The Colonists in New England went along with the English law. They had very strict blue laws, as religious rules were called, that went so far as outlawing mince pies.

But the immigrants coming to the New World brought their own customs from many lands. It wasn't long until the old religious celebrations were restored, and added to them were many customs unrelated to the church. Many of the customs originated in cultures that existed long before Christianity.

Santa Claus is strictly an American symbol of Christmas. He received his name from the early Dutch settlers who called him Saint Nicholas Sinterklaas. And he also took on some of the characteristics of England's Father Christmas.

The belief that Santa enters the house through the chimney developed from an old Norse legend. The Norse believed that the goddess Herta appeared in the fireplace and brought good luck to the home.

Then in 1922 an American minister and poet named Clement C. Moore first described Santa's fur trimmed suit and his sleigh pulled by reindeer. In his famous poem called " A Visit from St. Nicholas,'' he tells how the reindeer really do fly when it is the night before Christmas.

Yes, Robert, reindeer really do fly. But they fly only in the Christmas spirit.

A reindeer not caught up in the spirit of Christmas stands about three and a half feet tall and never gets his 300 pound weight off the ground. But he does pull sledges over the snow at the rate of about 15 miles per hour in Lapland, however. He has great endurance as well as swiftness and can provide transportation for hours at a time.

Reindeer are found in northern Europe and Asia. They are tamed and have become one of man's most valuable possessions in the arctic regions. They provide milk, food and shelter.

To provide a reliable source of food for the Eskimo of western Alaska, the United States Office of Education imported 1,280 reindeer from Siberia between 1892 and 1902. More than a million reindeer have descended from these animals and now range from Point Barrow to Kodiak Island.