It's nearly Christmas here in the U.S. and NORAD's official Santa Tracker is now up.
For those who want to track where Santa Claus is right now, click over to noradsanta.org where he can be seen making his Christmas Eve flight around the world.
NORAD Tracks Santa has been a tradition for over 50 years. In 1955, after a newspaper ad invited kids to call Santa, listing the number for the Continental Aerospace Defense Command, predecessor to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The officers on duty receiving the calls played along and 'updated' Santa's progress to the children. Since then, NORAD mena dn women, family and friends have volunteered their time to personally respond to phone calls and emails from children around the world.
The NORAD Tracks Santa Facebook page already has 1.5 million likes, and the phone line to call is now active. Santa's updates will be posted on Facebook (facebook.com/noradsanta), Twitter (twitter.com/NoradSanta) and the website (noradsanta.org). Hundreds of volunteers will be working for 23 hours on Christmas Eve to pass on Santa's location.
Last year, the website garnered nearly 20 million visitors and this year is expected to be the same. The site was launched in 1997, and its peak was at 23 million visitors.
The website has an animated elf named Radar.
Phone calls to Santa went up from about 74,000 in 2009 to over 117,000 in 2013.
NORAD (North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command) is a joint U.S.-Canada command created in 1958 that is responsible for defending the skies and monitoring the sea approaches for both countries. Its control room is now at Peterson Air Force Base, in Colorado Springs.
