Santa Claus starts his Christmas trip around the world: route tracking starts
Kyiv • UNN
Santa Claus has started his 24-hour Christmas journey with billions of stops. NORAD, as it has every year since 1955, is tracking Santa's sleigh in real time.
Santa Claus and his reindeer have begun their journey around the globe, with billions of stops in less than 24 hours, UNN reports citing The Independent.
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Santa Claus and his reindeer, who have begun their journey around the globe, plan to make billions of stops over the next 24 hours.
According to Norad, current conditions at the North Pole indicate good weather for flights.
Every Christmas, NORAD - the North American Aerospace Defense Command - provides real-time tracking of Santa's sleigh as it moves across the sky.
This tradition dates back to 1955, when a mistake in a department store advertisement led a young child to call the Colorado Military Command Center asking to speak to Santa Claus.
Air Force Colonel Harry Shoup, who answered the call that evening, played along and assured the child that he was Santa. As more calls came in, he assigned an officer to handle the requests, starting a holiday custom that Norad continued after its creation in 1958.
For decades, NORAD has replaced its normal airspace monitoring duties to answer children's questions about Santa's journey and his amazing gift delivery operation.
Every year, at least 100,000 children call the organization to find out where Santa Claus is. Millions more watch online in nine languages as Santa Claus sweeps across the Earth's meridians.
