Dear Diary:

Santa and his reindeer aren’t the only one’s working hard this Christmas Eve. The Purdue semi, loaded to the rivets with everything from weights to golf clubs to Christmas presents for the children of the football coaches arrived an hour late to the fabulous Peabody Hotel yesterday, sending just about everybody who was up at 7 a.m. into a panic.

Once the truck arrived at 8 a.m., a group of workers that sounds like a verse from “The 12 Days of Christmas,” (12 managers, six training staffers, three weight equipment guys and two equipment managers, unloaded the truck in 30 minutes.

Then they hustled across town to the Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium to remove all of the players’ equipment, hundreds of pounds of weights and things that are kind of important to practice, like footballs.

Practice ran from 10-11 a.m. The equipment team, led by equipment manager Mike Shandrick and assistant Tim Quinn, stayed at the stadium to clean up the locker room, help prepare the weight room for the afternoon training session and get ready for the second practice of the day, which ran from 4-6 p.m.

They locked down the stadium at 6:45 to make the 25-minute trip back to the fabulous Peabody Hotel to get ready for the 7 p.m. team banquet.

Arriving at the banquet at 7:20, they ate quickly and prepared to distribute Christmas goody bags (each player got a Panasonic Camcorder and leather carrying bag and a silver Capitol One watch).

They finished playing Santa just after 9 p.m., which all adds up to a 14-hour day.

Santa and his elves ain’t got nothing on these guys.

Merry Christmas.