For centuries, Santa Claus has mesmerized children around the globe. On the eve of every Christmas, children across the world have been waiting eagerly for this jolly old man to begin his journey from the North Pole to their homes to bring gifts for them.  

Although the children continue to track Santa’s movement even to this day, the spread of the Internet and modern technology has made the tracking even more sophisticated now.   

Now every Christmas eve, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which is responsible for handling the air defense of the North America, tracks Santa Claus during his annual flight.

While it has been doing so for over the last five decades, the genesis of the act dates back to 1955 when a ‘Santa hot line’ in a newspaper department store ad mistakenly listed a wrong telephone number. The commander at that time, Col Harry W Shoup, who received children’s calls on the number, obliged them for he did not want to dishearten the kids.

Currently, NORAD makes use of four high-tech systems to track Santa – radar, satellites, Santa Cams and jet fighter aircraft. And as many as 1,000 volunteers are equipped with telephones on the Christmas Eve to answer queries from both the young and young at heart about Santa's whereabouts. According to NORDAD, lat year there were as many as 435,000 telephone enquiries and this time it has probably touched the billion mark.

Since the last few years, NORAD has also hosted a popular seasonal website called the noradsanta.org to track the movement of Santa during his annual trip from the North Pole. A click on any of the regions on a map on the site will enable a visitor to know about ‘Santa’s Progress’. It will help the visitor to learn about the places Santa has already visited and information on his present position.

It is interesting to note that millions of viewers log on to this website to see the special program, which is available in different languages – English, French, German, Italian, Spanish as well as Japanese. The program is updated every five minutes and is run on donations and with the help of the US Defense Department volunteers.

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