As children, we’d have to look to the sky to catch a glimpse of an unusually bright light or flashing celestial sleigh. But thanks to modern technology, children can follow Santa’s journey using some pretty neat trackers.
NORAD is the best place to calculate what time you can expect an appearance down your chimney on Santa’s busiest night of the year.
It all started in 1955 when a child accidentally dialed NORAD to ask about Santa Claus, and they’ve been on Santa duty ever since. The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command provides details even down to how quickly the big man can travel. According to the data released this year, Santa will be traveling 510,000,000km after he takes to the skies with Rudolf et al.
This works out about 1,800km per second. No wonder he has to have his skates on, he needs to visit about 390,000 homes per minute – that’s 6,424 every second.
And to sustain the man in the red suit, children all over the planet are expected to leave out Christmas cake, Guinness, chocolate milk, cookies, pudding and gingerbread men. In fact, according to the numbers, Santa will consume a whopping 71, 744,000,000 calories. Just a few less than mummy will inhale through cheese over the holidays.
The route
According to NORAD, Father Christmas aka Old Saint Nick aka The big man aka Santa Claus likes to start his night off in the South Pacific with the Republic of Kiribati first on his stop-0ff list.
Then he travels west, delivering the gifts to New Zealanders, Australians and then the Japanese children. Without as much as a cup of tea (unless you’ve left one out) Santa then continues to Asia, Africa and Western Europe. Canada, the US, Mexico and South American end his night of work
Festivities
The NORAD Santa website receives about nine million unique visitors keen to follow Santa’s journey. The official Santa Tracker will launch on Christmas Eve allowing parents and Children to track his journey across the globe as he delivers presents to all on the good list.
Almost 2 thousand people volunteer to answer emails and take phone calls about Santa’s exact position during the night. For those who can’t wait to wait than long, there are games, videos and stories in a range on languages on the site currently. On Christmas Eve, you can even call or text 1-877-HI-NORAD to get Santa’s exact location.
You can start your monitoring here.
If you want to keep fictional tabs on the interdimensional bearded one through other apps, you can try Kringle radio. Kringle Radio broadcasts directly from the North Pole all year round. It is a US-based, commercial-free and HD quality radio featuring a unique blend of Christmas music from nearly every available genre.
Call me
You can even have a personalised call with Santa in the Call to Santa App in the lead up to Christmas.
The North Pole Command Center makes sure Santa knows your child’s name and whether they’re on the naughty or nice list. On Christmas Eve, the app will allow you to explore a 3D globe where you can zoom in and out on Santa’s location.
It’ll also show the percentage of presents that Santa has delivered.
But remember that sometimes the magic is in the mystery and bombarding your child with so many apps can take some of the excitement out of things.
And as organised as we all are, don’t forget to look to the sky yourself on Christmas eve and remember there is a little bit of magic out there for all of us. You don’t always have to see it to believe it.
Merry Christmas…
Image via Unsplash.com
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