santa tracker
Latest
Tracking Santa's journey on your favorite Apple device
Photo Credit: TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images About now, the kids are probably bouncing off the walls in anticipation of the overnight visit by a bearded guy in a red suit -- AKA Santa Claus. Fortunately, there are a handful of free apps you can install and websites to visit so that the kids won't be asking you "When is Santa coming? Where is he now?" every 2.3 seconds. Let's take a look! NORAD Tracks Santa This is the official app of the NORAD Tracks Santa program, which has been going on forever ... or at least since I was a kid and I'm almost as old as Old Saint Nick. The days and hours count down to Santa's flight (he's probably started by now...), your kids can see where that hypersonic reindeer-powered sleigh currently is, play a fun game called "Thin Ice" to help Santa's elves deliver presents, and also find out all about the North American Air Defense Command (AKA NORAD). NORAD Tracks Santa Official Website Should you decide that you'd rather not have little hands, sticky from eating too many candy canes, messing up your new iPhone 6 Plus, send the kids over to their own computer and they can visit NORADsanta.org. That site is also official, and powered by Microsoft BING. Please note that it crashed Safari the first time I loaded it, so Satya Nadella may be playing the Grinch this year. Santa was landing in Novosibirsk, Russia when I took the screenshot you see above. The site runs on iOS, although you'll probably want to set it up for a 2D view rather than 3D. Google Santa Tracker Website Hmmm, that's strange. NORADsanta.org shows that the jolly old elf is in Kazakhstan, while Google is now showing him in Noril'sk, Russia. I call shenanigans! The Google site is actually a lot more fun than the official NORAD site, featuring an animated Santa delivering gifts at each stop, fake "text messages", and of course the distance to your home. And this site runs much faster on iOS devices than the Bing-ish one. Don't Ask Siri... Sorry to say, but Apple apparently isn't in the holiday mood this year. Asking Siri where Santa was resulted in this: while asking for the exact location of Santa Claus brought up a map showing Santa Claus, Indiana (yes, it's a real place.) Bah humbug! Social Networks NORAD Santa is on Twitter and Facebook, too! That makes it quite easy for you to trick the kids into staring at your Twitter feed for hours waiting for the updates, while you hit the eggnog.
A visit to NORAD's Santa-tracking facility (video)
Few things in this world will reaffirm your holiday spirit faster than watching a dozen or so uniformed service people cover a room in Christmas wrapping. Also on that short list, it so happens, is spotting one of the aforementioned troops hand-feed an overzealous and noticeably plump squirrel who's anxiously scratching on the door to get in. It's a strangely Snow White-esque moment that unfolds minutes after we set up our gear in the conference room of the Leadership Development Center -- a drab, unassuming office space in the middle of Colorado Springs' Peterson Air Force Base that serves as a training facility for 11 months out of the year. But now, in early December, there's a transformation occurring, as men and women in various shades of camouflage paper the space with Christmas spirit in record time. For one month a year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) converts this area into holiday central for NORAD's Santa Tracker, a half-century-old program that has become a thing of legend -- a curious juxtaposition of warfare preparedness and storybook magic. It's one that, somehow fittingly, is rooted in a mistake -- a phone number misprinted in a 1955 Sears catalog, prompting local children to call Santa's "private number." Those calls from excited boys and girls were routed, the legend goes, to the big red phone in the war room of NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), where quick-thinking Col. Harry Shoup asked his troops to play along. Now, 57 years later, it's a massive undertaking, as volunteers in military garb and Santa hats answer calls from children in hundreds of countries.
Google serves up reindeer games with Santa Tracker, lets St. Nick message your besties
Sure, Google's not in the Santa Tracking NORAD cabal anymore, but that's not stopping it from rolling out St. Nicholas-related goodies. It just launched a series of new games, including a chimney / gift dropping challenge, a rocket-powered elf race and a Santa chat that lets you send a droll holiday greeting to your "hoodlum besties." You can even play Rudolph for a lark and drag Santa around in his sleigh -- badly, in our case -- so check the source (hint: click the red box at the bottom left) for some holiday cheer, Mountain View-style.
