He’s On His Sleigh: How To Track Santa’s Journey

In 1955, a Sears & Roebuck advertisement in Colorado Springs, CO, urged children to call Santa, but the number was misprinted. When the calls started pouring in to the Continental Air Defense Command, Col. Harry Shoup, the officer on duty, swung into action and had his operators find the location of Santa.

NORAD will staff 157 phone lines with volunteers, who will answer an estimated 125,000 calls from children around the globe looking for Santa.

ROME New York Air National Guardsmen and Royal Canadian Air Force personnel assigned to the Eastern Air Defense Sector will play a key role Christmas Eve as the North American Aerospace Defense Command tracks Santa Claus and his reindeer.

Starting at 12:01 Mountain Standard Time (MST) on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, trackers can log on to the NORAD Santa Tracker website and watch Saint Nick get ready for the big trip.

The NORAD tradition of tracking Santa is marking its 60th anniversary.

NORAD’s Stacey Knott, who has organised the event for three years, said: “We get a lot of calls from Europe, Australia and New Zealand”. This year, as jolly Santa is tracked by NORAD’s radars, volunteers will keep an eye out for 23 hours, as well as on Christmas Eve.

In addition to visiting the site, there are several other ways to track Santa. Check out Santa’s flight path on NORAD’s official tracker here.

NORAD will be live-tweeting Santa’s journey throughout the day and civilians can also follow along on NORAD’s live map on its website.

Not to be rolled over by the NORAD juggernaut, the Department of Transportation says it has “approved an application submitted by a Mr. Kris Kringle (d/b/a “Santa Claus”) for special air transportation operating authority”.

“Families can also track Santa through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ by typing “@noradsanta” into each search engine.