Keep an Eye on Santa this Year with NORAD Santa Tracker

 

This is my last post of the year.  I'll return on Monday January 5th to continue keeping you up to date with cool and fun things about dentistry and life.  I've been working on this blog for over twenty years and there is no way I'm stopping now.  So enjoy the holidays with friends and family.  I'll be back on January 5th with my regular Monday thru Thursday updates.

This last post is one I make every year, because it's *so* cool!!!  Everybody loves Santa and there's nothing more exciting than to know that he's on the way.  That's why I always recommend that folks use the best state of the art system to know where he is on his journey.

24/7, 365 the skies over North America are monitored and kept safe by NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command).  They control the airspace over North America and monitor for potential threats.  Many of you are probably familiar with them from the great 80s movie "War Games" starring a young Matthew Broderick.

Since NORAD monitors the air space over North America, they are *very* well suited to track traffic coming out of the North Pole.  That's where this story gets really interesting.

Every Christmas season, you can follow Santa's journey around the world via the NORAD Santa Tracker.  Access the page and you can get constant updates and videos of jolly old Saint Nick as he makes the trek to bring toys to all the good girls and boys.  Here's a screenshot from the day I wrote this post.  Make sure to notice the countdown timer in the lower right corner of the image.  Every year, the site begins to update starting on December 1st.  NORAD is 'on it' when it comes to knowing the big guy's whereabouts.

On Christmas Eve, the site provides live tracking of Santa's journey which you can watch.  There are also apps available for Apple and Android so you can track Santa from your mobile device as well.

The site is fairly simple, but that makes it easy to navigate... even for youngsters.  I can still remember tracking Santa when my kids were little.  We even once called the Santa Hotline and spoke with a NORAD volunteer who was helping keep an eye on Santa's progress.

The Story

For the full rundown of all the facts, there is a great page on Wikipedia about the origins of this project.  However here are some of the things I find super interesting about the program:

• You can call the Hotline - In addition to tracking Santa, the program offers an 800 number families can call that are answered by a human.  There is also a live chat function on the website.
• It is run by volunteers - The phone lines are manned by both military and civilian operators who donate their time
• Each volunteer -  handles about 40 telephone calls per hour and the team typically handles more than 12,000 e-mails and more than 70,000 telephone calls from more than two hundred countries and territories. Most of these contacts happen during the twenty-five hours from 2 a.m. on December 24 until 3 a.m. MST on December 25
• It is a long running NORAD tradition - It is a community outreach program of NORAD, and has been held annually since 1955
• Its origin - A local Colorado Springs Sears store ran a newspaper ad in 1955.  The ad listed a phone number that children could call and talk to Santa.  The ad misprinted one digit in the phone number which actually connected it to the local military facility.  Deciding it was a great community outreach idea, the military decided to continue the idea the following December.

If you are around any little ones on Christmas Eve or even in the days before, I highly recommend the NORAD Santa Tracker.  It really brings the excitement and wonder out of the kiddos.

As I end this year with this post, I want to thank you all for reading and for all the support you've shown in the past and continue to provide me as we move forward.  The Technology Evangelist Podcast is growing and the blog following (even after all of these years) continues to grow.  You kind people have given me a purpose.  It's wasted effort to do things like the blog and podcast if I didn't have an audience.  That's all of you and I will always be grateful for you.  Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.  I wish all of you continued health and blessings for the new year.