Want the best Santa Tracker and to play some fun games through Norad or Google? We’re live-blogging it for you
Happy (almost) Christmas! As we close out another year, it’s time for one of our favorite seasonal activities – the TechRadar Santa tracker! Using the two most popular trackers, NORAD and Google, we’ll be bringing you live updates as St Nick makes his way around the globe.
Santa tracking is now a well-loved tradition, but it all started by accident nearly 70 years ago. As legend would have it, a Sears catalog accidentally printed the Colorado Springs’ Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center’s phone number instead of a Santa hotline in Christmas 1955, and began to receive calls from children hoping to speak to Klaus himself.
Seeing an opportunity for a little festive fun, CONAD began publishing press releases on Santa’s whereabouts every year. The tradition caught on, and CONAD handed over the reins to NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) after its formation in 1958.
While NORAD’s Santa tracker has historically been the go-to resource for following Santa’s whereabouts, there are now a plethora of ways families and big kids alike can scout for Kris Kringle.
The best of them is made by Google, which released its own Santa Tracker in 2004. It offers a very different experience to NORAD, but is still just as fun.
You’ve got two main choices when it comes to tracking Santa – both offer different ways of following jolly ol’ St Nick, but it depends on the experience you’re looking for.
