Santa Claus is on his way and if you are too anxious about his arrival, you can track him with not one, but two ways - with NORAD and Google.
Google tracking Santa's progress is not surprising. After all, the search engine giant has made quite a name for itself by managing to track almost everybody, though it stumbled over a few privacy breach lawsuits on the way. But why is North American Aerospace Defense Command (or NORAD), which is better known for providing aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and defense for North America, tracking Santa? The answer will surprise you.
NORAD, in fact, has been tracking Father Christmas' journey since 1955. It all started with a typo in a Sears Roebuck ad that invited kids to contact Santa. Fortunately, or unfortunately (depends on how you look at it), the contact number of the Santa's direct line in the ad had one digit missing and as a result, all calls went to a secret air defense emergency number.
After answering the the first few calls from unsuspecting kids, U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, then director of operations at the center, finally set up a dedicated team to answer calls that night. In subsequent years, a new phone number and service was established and publicized to which people were invited to call in to find out the status of the Santa's journey worldwide. Since then, on every Christmas Eve, military service members staff answer phones and emails regarding the whereabouts of Santa.
What's more, a Santa Tracker Twitter account has also been set up that provides up-to-the-minute information on Santa's journey.
You can either follow this link to track Santa on NORAD or download an application (Android and iOS) to your smartphone. You can also call NORAD's Santa hotline by dialing (877) HI-NORAD.
However, we suggest that you check out Google's Santa Tracker too. It's way cooler as the site does not only track Santa, but also it has many funny and interesting videos and games to help you kill the time as you wait for Santa to deliver your gifts. You can download the Android app here.
