Track Santa on Christmas Eve!
Track Santa's flight at the NORAD website.
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Call it "Travel For Kids" instead of "Travel With Kids": this is one Web site I'm sure will interest many of you on the night when Santa's sleigh takes flight. |
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NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) has been tracking Santa since way back in the fifties, when a child in Colorado dialed a number for a Santa call-in line, and got the Continental Air Defense Command --NORAD's precursor-- on the line instead.
Seems that a Sears Roebuck & Co. store had run an ad for kids to call Santa on a special "hotline", but the number was printed wrong. Fortunately, the Director of Operations at CONAD played along; as the kids called in, he had his staff track Santa on their radar. For years afterwards, NORAD provided a call-in line at Christmas that gave updates about Santa through the night.
Today, the online NORAD Tracks Santa Web site gets millions of hits on Christmas night. Every year, the visual display gets spiffier, but it hardly matters: the magic for a child is in seeing Santa's flight tracked by an official aerospace agency.
As the Web site of defense industry fact-source Jane's Defence Weekly once put it:
"...Starting early in the morning of 24 December, NORAD personnel will be picking up Santa on their consoles. Based on careful record-keeping from years past, and employing highly skilled radar and satellite technicians, NORAD can usually determine exactly where Santa is throughout Christmas Eve."
It's great fun to have a look at this Web site if you happen to have a child who's beginning to doubt Saint Nick. Parents may need to do some prep though: check the site early, to see if you need to download plug-ins to make the Santa-tracking work. You should have Google Maps downloaded, ready for the big night.
New in 2008: Track Santa on your phone. (Be sure to download "Google Maps for mobile" first.)
Even before Christmas night, kids can have fun checking the site: countdown starts on December 1st.
Parents can also check the official NORAD site for updates such as "NORAD confirms Santa Sleigh Test Flight". Read one of these official updates with a child who's almost disbelieving, watch his or her reaction, and try to keep from chuckling!
Norad's been tracking Santa's flight for over 50 years!
Many thanks to the men and women at these serious-business agencies who take the time, and have the heart and the sense of humor, to create these pages for our kids.
*Santa's "photo" courtesy of About's Guide for Horseracing.
Happy Holidays!