CNN
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Santa Claus has stuffed his sleigh with toys for all good children and he made sure the deer were secured for takeoff. They now travel the world to visit millions of households.
While you wait to hear the jingle of bells in the air that means Santa is near, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has a tracking system to show the jolly man’s progress around the world.
NORAD, which is responsible for protecting the skies over the United States and Canada, activated its Santa tracking system at 6 a.m. ET on Christmas Eve. People can follow Santa’s journey around the world NORAD website or they can call the command center at 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723).
A live or recorded operator will give the caller Santa’s current location, according to a Nov. 30 NORAD press release.
The tracking service can also be accessed through the NORAD Tracks Santa app, social media, Amazon Alexa, OnStar and the Bing search engine, according to the news release.
This is the 67th year that NORAD has tracked Santa’s Christmas journey around the world. It started by accident, according to the NORAD websitein 1955, when an ad in a local newspaper informed children that they could call Santa Claus directly – only the contact number was misprinted.
“Instead of calling Santa, the child called the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado,” the website said.
“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 the calls, and a tradition was born that continued when NORAD was established in 1958.
That’s how the tradition was started, according to NORAD, and they’ve kept it going for decades ever since. Millions of families and children around the world have used the tracking service to monitor Santa’s whereabouts, according to NORAD.
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