A tradition that started in 1955 continues. The North America Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa Claus since 1955. Of course, back then a website wasn’t present to show the results but now the man in red suit’s annual flight plan can be tracked on the official website or NORAD’s accounts on various social media platforms.

The Colorado Springs headquartered organisation started the programme in 1955 when a local Sears store printed a newspaper ad that invited kids to call a certain phone number to talk to Santa. The number was misprinted and NORAD received a huge volume of calls. The colonel on duty didn’t let kids down and started a tracking system.

“While the tradition of tracking Santa began purely by accident, NORAD continues to track Santa. We’re the only organisation that has the technology, the qualifications, and the people to do it. And, we love it. NORAD is honoured to be Santa’s official tracker,” says a note on the website.

At the moment, the elves are on duty while children can visit a virtual arcade to play games. Or, they can visit the virtual theatre, which has links to plenty of YouTube videos.

NORAD intelligence indicates that Santa is about five feet and seven inches tall and weighs about 260 pounds (before cookies) while his sleigh carries about 60,000 tons of gifts at takeoff.