Track Santa Claus as he sets off across the globe delivering presents

NORAD is tracking Santa Claus and his reindeer as they head toward Cape Cod and the Islands later tonight.

And don’t panic if you haven’t got the latest smartphone or tablet as you can also watch all the action via the Norad Santa Tracker website.

Miles of wire, dozens of computers and more than 150 telephone lines are in place to allow the American military to keep kids up to date with Santa’s sleigh ride around the world.

The defense organization, headquartered at Peterson Air Force in Colorado, began getting ready for this year’s tracking session weeks ago. Tracking opportunities are also offered on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+. Last year, the site had 21.8 million visits in December from people in 234 countries and territories around the world, he said.

In 1955, the Sears Roebuck & Co. department store placed an ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper with a phone number for kids to call and speak to Santa.

The colonel that happened to answer that first call from a child was quick on his feet and played along with it explaining that he was Santa’s special helper. Instead of Santa, children reached the commander-in-chief’s hotline at CONAD, the U.S. Continental Air Defense Command. Google’s Santa Tracker, Santatracker.google.com, and TrackingSanta.netare also good ways to track his progress. The website is available in eight languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese.

According to the Google Santa tracker, Santa is now over the Solomon Islands to the east of Papua New Guinea, 14,900 kms from Ireland – and moving fast.

“We’re so happy this is the 60th year we are able to track Santa and we’re his official tracker”, said Lt(N). Children and parents can call the NORAD operations floor at 1-877-446-6723 for live updates on Santa or track Santa on the web at www.noradsanta.org.