Norad Santa Tracker: How can I track Santa and when does it launch?
It s one tradition that can t be stopped
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Published Thursday, December 24, 2020 3:07PM EST WASHINGTON - Children of the world can rest easy. The global pandemic won t stop them from tracking Santa Claus progress as he delivers gifts around the globe on Christmas Eve. The North American Aerospace Defence Command has announced that NORAD will track Santa on Dec. 24, just as it has done for 65 years. But there will be some changes: Not every child will be able to get through to a volunteer at NORAD s call centre to check on Santa s whereabouts, as they have in years before. Normally, 150-160 volunteers crowd into a conference room at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, taking two-hour shifts to answer the phones as eager children call to see if Santa and his sleigh have reached their rooftops. All together, 1,500 people over 20 hours have participated in the call centre in the past, fielding more than 130,000 phone calls, beginning at 6 a.m. Eastern time on Christmas Eve.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command is celebrating the 65th Anniversary of tracking Santa’s yuletide journey! The NORAD Tracks Santa website, www.noradsanta.org features a 3-D and 2-d map of Santa s journey in real time and is available in multiple languages including: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese.
Official NORAD Tracks Santa apps are also available in the Windows, Apple and Google Play stores, so parents and children can countdown the days until Santa’s launch on their smartphones and tablets! Tracking opportunities are also offered on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Google+. Santa followers just need to type
Jeff Fitzmorris/U.S. Air Force
Air Force personnel work with volunteers to answer calls to NORAD s Santa tracking hotline on Christmas Eve 2019. This year, the operation has been scaled back, but is still running, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christmas Eve can be rough. For kids eager for the next morning’s toyfest, it’s a day of frantic anticipation. For parents, wishing their kids would just settle down and let Saint Nick work his magic, bedtime can’t come soon enough.
For 65 years, help for parent and child alike has come from an unusual corner: the American and Canadian servicemembers at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.