NORAD Tracks Santa: How Your Kids Can Follow Along

BOLD RIDE

Copyright © 2015 Bold Ride LLC.

 

Posted by Nicole Wakelin 

                               

 

The presents are wrapped, dinner is over, but the kids won’t go to sleep. They want it to be Christmas morning right now. Help the kids figure out how much time they have left to wait by tracking Santa’s journey around the globe.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of NORAD (originally CONAD) tracking Santa with their high-tech military satellites, because what else are all those guys in some lonely control center going to do on Christmas Eve?

 It all started in 1955 when a misprinted Sears Roebuck & Co. ad listed the telephone number for the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations hotline.

Instead of hanging up and telling children not to bother them because they had an important job to do, they played along. Children were given an update on Santa’s position so they could figure out how long they needed to stay awake to catch a glimpse and a tradition was born.

Today, you can track santa with an app or online at Norad Tracks Santa with updates from military service members, sometimes as they fly past Santa in the sky. The site also features games, music, and stories that kids can read to get even more excited for the big day. Have fun keeping tabs on the big guy in red and Merry Christmas!