How to track Santa around the world on Christmas Eve - and when did the NORAD tracker start?

Today is December 24 and on Christmas Eve, children can track Santa Claus's journey around the world via NORAD’s Santa Claus Tracker.

For those keen to see just how Santa and his reindeer manage to travel across the globe and deliver all those presents - here is everything you need to know about the NORAD Santa Claus Tracker.

How did the tradition begin?

NORAD (which stands for the North American Aerospace Defence Command) has been around for decades, with the tradition first taking off in 1955 after a local newspaper ran an advert by a department store that included a misprinted phone number. This then led to a child calling up a Colorado military command by mistake requesting a chat with Santa.

Air Force Commander Harry Shoup who was on the other end of the line answering the influx of calls played along and informed the children they were in fact speaking with Father Christmas.

A duty officer was then assigned by Commander Shoup to answer all of the incoming calls that night.

This then became a tradition, and in 1958 NORAD was formed and took it over and have been doing this every Christmas since, with volunteers helping on Christmas Eve to answer calls.

How can I track Santa?

Nowadays, children can search up Santa's whereabouts online with the NORAD Santa Claus tracker and this year the website launched on December 1.

The tracker shares where Santa last delivered presents and where he is heading with a countdown, along with an overall estimation of how many gifts he had delivered.

As well as the website, households can track Santa on their smartphones by downloading NORAD’s Santa Tracker app on both the Apple app store and Google Play store.

But if you want to go old school and call up NORAD for Santa updates, you can ring the phone number 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) on December 24 from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Christmas Day ET.

At the time of writing, Santa is currently heading for Kurilsk, Kuril Islands and has dropped off over 600,000 gifts already.

You can track Santa's location from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. on Christmas Day ET.

Merry Christmas!

Elsewhere, 10 Christmas traditions from around the world you need to know.

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