CNN
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Santa Claus has filled his sleigh with toys for all the good kids and he made sure the reindeer are secure for take-off. Now they travel the world to visit millions of homes.
While you wait to hear the jingle of bells in the air that means Santa Claus is near, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has a tracking system to show the progress of the joyful man around the world.
NORAD, which is responsible for protecting the skies over the United States and Canada, activates its Santa tracking system at 6 a.m. ET on Christmas Eve. People can follow Santa’s journey around the world on the NORAD website and CNN live stream, or they can call the command center at 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446 -6723).
A live operator, or recording, will give the caller the current location of Santa Claus, according to a Nov. 30 press release from NORAD.
The tracking service is also accessible through the NORAD Tracks Santa app, social media, Amazon Alexa, OnStar and the Bing search engine, according to the press release.
This is the 67th year that NORAD has been tracking Santa’s Christmas journey around the world. It all started by accident, according to the NORAD website, in 1955 when an advertisement in a local newspaper informed children that they could call Santa Claus directly – only the contact number was incorrectly printed.
“Instead of calling Santa, the child called the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) operations center in Colorado Springs, Colorado,” the website says.
“Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the duty commander that night who answered the child’s phone call, quickly realized a mistake had been made and assured the child that he was Santa Claus. After more calls came in, Shoup assigned a duty officer to continue answering calls and a tradition was born, which continued when NORAD was formed in 1958.”
So the tradition began, according to NORAD, and they carried it on for decades. According to NORAD, millions of families and children around the world have used the tracking service to monitor Santa’s whereabouts.
