Wanna know where Santa is this Christmas? Is he on his way to your house? Or is Santa already in your neighborhood? Better be ready because your house may be next!

Tracking Santa Claus has been an annual tradition for millions of kids worldwide. But did you know how this all started? In 1955, a Colorado Springs Sears store ran an ad encouraging kids to call Santa Claus on a special telephone hotline. Due to a printing error, the phone number that was printed was
the hotline for the Director of Operations at the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD). Colonel Harry Shoup took the first Santa call on Christmas Eve of 1955 from a six-year old boy who began reciting his Christmas list. Shoup didn’t find the call funny, but after realizing the mistake that occurred, he instructed his staff to give Santa’s position to any child who called in.

Years later, the governments of the United States and Canada combined their respective national domestic air defenses into the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), but the tradition continued. Now major media outlets as well as children call in to inquire on Santa’s location. NORAD relies on volunteers to help make Santa tracking possible. Many employees at Cheyenne Mountain and Peterson Air Force Base spend part of their Christmas Eve with their families and friends at NORAD’s Santa Tracking Operations Center in order to answer phones and provide Santa updates to thousands of callers. About 800 service members and their families volunteer, and shift run from 2 AM MST December 24 to 2 AM Christmas morning.

In 1997, Canadian Major Jamie Robertson took over the program and expanded it to the Web where corporation-donated services have given the tradition global accessibility. In 2004, NORAD received more than 35,000 e-mails, 55,000 calls and 912 million hits on the Santa-tracking website from 181 countries. In 2005, more than 500 volunteers answered questions. In 2006 half a million calls and over 12,500 e-mails were handled from 210 territories. The site now gets well over 1 billion hits.

norad santaNorad Santa Tracker 2009. Looking for the 2009 Santa Claus Norad Tracker? Follow Santa Claus with the Norad Santa Tracker 2009 and see where he is. Santa Claus may be near you and you may be his next destination. Just hop on to the NORAD website.

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