NORAD Santa Tracker Becoming a Christmas Eve Tradition

For decades, children all around the world have waited anxiously for Santa Claus to visit their homes on Christmas Eve, imploring their parents to give hints about the timing of St. Nick's arrival. While it may not help the little ones to fall asleep, the NORAD Santa Tracker certainly gives children and their parents a festive diversion while waiting for Santa and plannning their evenings.

Begun on December 24, 1955, as a Sears promotion, the Santa Tracker is produced by the North American Aerospace Defence Command, and has grown enormously from its humble beginnings as a talk-to-Santa phone service that actually rang to the wrong location, namely the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), which became NORAD in 1958. The folks at CONAD were kind enough to field the errant calls from children, offering each an update on Santa's current location.

Throughout the latter half of the twentieth centurty, children were treated to sporadic NORAD updates, usually via the nightly weather forecast on the local news stations. The advent of a robust Internet, though, led to the establishment of the official NORAD Santa Tracker web site, and now tiny tots and harried parents rely on the frequent updates and videos to see how Santa is progressing and to arrange their evenings accordingly.

It's always amazing to see just how fast Santa zips across the globe, which just proves that reindeer really know how to FLY. Be sure to keep your kids' eyes aglow this year as they follow Santa Claus' gift-giving journey around the world!