It’s Christmas Eve and, after a busy period, Santa and all the elves are making final preparations for presents to be delivered across the world. And families in Bristol will be able to track where Santa and his reindeers will be flying across the sky using the NORAD Santa Tracker.
For those of you that haven’t heard of it, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) has a tool that will change your Christmas forever. As suggested by its name, The Santa Tracker literally tracks Santa’s location as he makes the long journey to deliver presents to children all over the world.
It doesn’t matter where you are spending Christmas; you will be able to watch Santa and his sleigh pulled by reindeer travel 510,000,000km in one evening. However, at a speed of around 1,800 miles per second, you are going to need to keep your eyes peeled.
So what do you need to do to track Santa? Well, NORAD’s Santa Tracker can be found here (at noradsanta.org) and will go live at around 8am on Christmas Eve. What’s more, thousands of volunteers will be on standby waiting to respond to emails and calls regarding Father Christmas’ whereabouts.
And, you don’t need little ones to enjoy the magic. Why not relive your childhood Christmases and fulfil that lifelong dream of catching Santa in the act, or get relatives from afar involved, too, so you can share the experience even worlds apart.
His route will see him travel from East to West, flying past a number of iconic landmarks as he goes, and the tracker will keep you updated with where he was last seen, where his next destination will be and even how many presents he has safely delivered so far. Spoiler, it’ll be a lot!
While you wait for the tracker to go live, or for Father Christmas to get a bit closer to home, you can also enjoy plenty of fun activities on the noradsanta.org website, too. There’s an arcade full of games, a theatre showing movies about Santa and NORAD, a music stage where you can listen to Santa’s favourite holiday songs, a library where you can learn all about him, his magic sleigh and holiday traditions, and even a gift shop.
This article was first published in December 2022 and was republished in December 2024.