The Santa files

For years the Sears catalog offered a Santa Claus hotline. Children that were too young to write a letter to Santa could just call in their wish list.

The legend goes that the 1955 edition of the catalog had a misprint.  The phone number shown was the direct emergency line to the Commander in Chief of the Continental Air Defense Command, the military agency in charge of tracking airspace threats.  This was during the height of the cold war, when an all-out nuclear missile attack from the Soviet Union was a real possibility.

As Colonel Harry Shoup started getting calls from children from all over the country, he rolled with the punches and immediately ordered his staff to track the current position of Santa's sleigh as it flew south from the North Pole.  A new Santa tracking department was formed that year, manned by voluntary military personnel that would answer the children's calls.

The Colonel also got a new hotline with the president, just in case...

Over time, the US and Canada integrated their air tracking operations under the umbrella of the NORAD and their coverage only got better.  Today, the NORAD has a website and Santa's sleigh has GPS navigation.  Progress leaves no one behind. Check the site out below:

http://www.noradsanta.org/

The NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center will open beginning at 4:00am MST on 12/24.

Via Phone: 1-877-HI-NORAD

A few years' back, when my son David's faith in Santa started dwindling, we called the NORAD hotline.  A very professional sounding young woman gave David a no nonsense update on Santa's present location and ETA to Connecticut.  As the lady suggested, that night we tracked Santa on the NORAD website.  David was elated.

It was great to rekindle a child's connection with magic for one more year, a tribute to Colonel Shoup that showed us that no matter how important our obligations are, being there for others, especially those people we don't know, is the true spirit of Christmas.