Even as the government is in the midst of a partial shutdown, nothing can stop NORAD  from its yearly task of tracking Santa’s journey through the Christmas Eve skies as the jolly one treks to locations across the planet to deliver his toys to girls and boys everywhere.

For the past 63 years NORAD, who generally watches aerospace activity, turns its eyes to track Santa’s Christmas delivery progress.

The decade’s old tradition continues with over 1,500 military personnel and volunteers taking calls to inform on Santa’s location. 

The NORAD tradition started six decades ago when, in 1955, Sears and Roebuck, who would provide a phone number to children who wanted a little talk time with the jolly old elf misprinted the phone number and inadvertently directed the children’s calls to the Continental Air Defense Command center.

The center, in the spirit of the season spent the night answering the phones and kept all the curious callers informed about Santa’s whereabouts. That night, Colonel Harry Shoup and his staff began a tradition that would be taken over by NORAD when that command was created in 1958.

Although NORAD still has no answer as to how Santa manages to slide down chimneys despite his girth, they have said on their website that they have solved the mystery of how he manages to visit all the boys and girls in a single night. According to NORAD, “Intelligence reports indicate that Santa does not experience time the way we do. His trip seems to take 24 hours to us, but to Santa it might last days, weeks or even months.”

Children everywhere can talk to the experts by calling NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center at 1 877-HI-NORAD (1 877-446-6723) or send them an email at noradtrackssanta@outlook.com.

The curious can also go to NORAD’s Santa Tracking site here. At this site you can keep up to date on his present location and the number of gifts he has delivered and a whole bunch more.

  christmas, deliveries, eve, norad, santa, tracking, trip, world