The Norad Santa Tracker for Christmas 2015 is up and running and will allow kids around the world to keep track of Santa Claus as he delivers all his presents and gifts across the globe ahead of Christmas morning. The Norad Santa Tracker, as well as the Google Santa Tracker can be accessed through the link provided below.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been preparing for Santa this year, and volunteers will be answering phone calls from an estimated 125,000 children around the world who want updates as to where Santa is in real time.
Staff Sgt. Kyle Kelly is one of the team who was taping down phone wires in Norad's Santa Tracker call center on Monday. He said, "We keep adding stuff every year."
The Norad call center will be live for 23 hours as Santa makes his way around the world to deliver presents to kids on the "Nice List."
Those volunteers will also be providing updates as to where Santa is through social media networks Facebook and Twitter. Last year the social media updates were amazingly popular, with more than 1.6 million Likes being given to Santa.
Kelly said, "We start in November. We have to test every phone before we bring it in here."
This will be Norad's 60th year tracking Santa's whereabouts as he delivers Christmas gifts to children. To celebrate, it is expected that Michelle Obama will be helping out with the volunteer work, and will be having phone calls redirected to her on Christmas Eve so she can provide eager children with an update as to Santa's progress this year.
This year is also expected to set a new record for the number of calls to the Santa Tracker call center from outside the United States.
Norad's Stacey Knott, who has worked with the Norad Santa Tracker for the past three years has said, "We get a lot of calls from Europe, Australia and New Zealand."
The operation does not just stop at providing updates in English, and bilingual volunteers are also on call to receive calls from kids in foreign languages.
Norad has workers from the United States as well as Canada, and many Canadian staff are able to provide updates in French.
The Norad Santa Tracker control room is currently based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
The Christmas 2015 Norad Santa Tracker is live now and can be accessed by clicking here.
There is also a Google Santa Tracker which can be accessed by clicking here.
