Good evening and happy Christmas Eve! I cannot believe that tomorrow is Christmas. One of the things that I love at Christmas is the NORAD Santa Tracker. Are you familiar with the Santa Tracker?
It began in 1955 when a local department store misprinted a telephone number to speak to Santa and track his progress on Christmas Eve. Instead the children were calling CONAD, the predecessor to NORAD( the North American Aerospace Defense Command).
Luckily Colonel Harry Shoup was in command because he ordered that each child who called be told the exact coordinates of Santa, and to this day the tradition continues. Just in case you are wondering, this is paid for by corporate sponsors and all the phones are manned by volunteers.
If you visit the NORAD Santa Tracker web site with your children or grandchildren you can see the countdown to Santa’s visit, videos, games and much more. It really is a cute webpage and I think your little ones would like it. I know that my niece and nephew love it!
In addition to tracking Santa NORAD also supports the US troops all over the world and they provide links to all sorts of organizations that supports the troops and their families, you can see all of the links at Operation Goodwill.
The holidays are an incredibly difficult time for the Armed Forces and their families, please think of them over the coming days. I know many bloggers that have children, or family serving and I am sure they would love to know that people are thinking of them and are grateful for their service and sacrifices. The information is provided in the links above.
If you would like to read more about this history of NORAD, click here.
Happy Christmas Eve to you!
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As NORAD is a joint operation between our countries, I am familiar with it. The military base in North Bay, Ontario does some of that duty, and I remember newscasts covering that special duty on Christmas Eve.