Every year on Christmas Eve, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) conducts an important mission near Pueblo in Colorado Springs.
Since 1955, children across the country and around the world have relied on NORAD to keep tabs and provide updates on the movements of the one and only Santa Claus as he delivers presents to children around the world.
And it all started with a misprinted number in a Sears ad.
Here’s what you need to know about NORAD’s Santa tracker and when guys and gals on the big man’s nice list can expect it to go live.
When will NORAD’s Santa tracker go live?
The NORAD Tracks Santa website went live on December 1st. In addition to the popular Santa tracker, which starts tracking Santa’s movements around 4 a.m. on Christmas Eve, the site includes Santa’s North Pole Village, with Christmas-themed games, music and a countdown to the tracker’s annual launch.
The website is available in nine languages and the NORAD Tracks Santa app is also available in the Apple App and Google Play stores. The tracker will also be available on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X, according to NORAD.
Those without internet access worldwide can also call 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) to ask live operators for Santa’s location on December 24 from 6 a.m. to midnight MST.
When will Google’s Santa tracker become active?
While NORAD has led the effort to track down Kriss Kringle for the past 69 years, they are not the only ones keeping tabs on the world’s foremost package delivery pioneer.
Google itself has a popular Santa tracker, which will go live on December 24.
The tech company’s Santa tracker website is already live and currently features Christmas-themed games, as well as its own countdown clock for when the Santa tracker goes live.
The 1955 Sears ad that helped start the NORAD Tracks Santa program.
Why did NORAD start tracking Santa Claus?
The tradition began in 1955 when the Continental Air Defense Command – the predecessor to NORAD – received a call on a classified telephone line that went directly to the Pentagon.
Only Air Force Col. Harry Shoup and a four-star general knew the phone number.
“If that went away, it wasn’t good news,” Shoup’s daughter, Terri Van Keuren, told the Coloradoan in 2018.
But the caller on the line was not a military general or Pentagon official warning the command of a new threat to national security; it was a child anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus.
After speaking with the child’s mother, Shoup discovered that a misprint in a Sears advertisement that ran in that morning’s newspaper had resulted in the command’s top secret issue being published instead of Sears’ Santa line.
NORAD’s live operators chat with callers about Santa’s whereabouts.
Shoup placed some airmen on the red phone to handle the incoming calls from kids wanting to talk about their Christmas lists.
He then resolved the problem with the phone company and got a new phone number. Although Shoup didn’t know it at the time, he had just created a new tradition.
Nearly seventy years later, the annual tracking of Santa Claus continues.
More than 1,250 Canadian and American uniformed Department of Defense personnel and civilians volunteer their time every December 24 to answer the thousands of phone calls and emails coming in from around the world.
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Chieftain Editor Zach Hillstrom can be reached at zhillstrom@gannett.com or on X, at @ZachHillstrom. Support local news and subscribe to the Pueblo Chieftain at Subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared in The Pueblo Chieftain: When is Santa coming to Colorado? Follow his movements here
