Those looking to get the timing just right for setting out the milk and cookies have a few tools to make sure everything is ship-shape when Santa makes his way down your chimney.
Continuing multiyear traditions, both Google and NORAD have launched their Santa trackers so that parents can answer persistent questions from their kids on Christmas Eve, according to the Washington Post.
The First Lady Michelle Obama was even there at NORAD talking to kids who were calling in with questions. For the fourth consecutive year, she took time from her holiday schedule to personally answer phone calls on Santa’s journey as part of the annual NORAD Tracks Santa program run by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
Mrs. Obama answered children’s questions about Santa’s exact location using NORAD’s global Santa Tracker and let the children know when to expect Santa to visit their homes. She assured them all that NORAD was tracking Santa’s progress closely, and his journey was going well.
The NORAD Tracks Santa program (pictured left) began in 1955 after a phone call was made to the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. The call was from a local youngster who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a local newspaper advertisement. The commander on duty who answered the phone that night gave the child the information requested – the whereabouts of Santa. This began the tradition of tracking Santa, a tradition that was carried on by NORAD when it was formed in 1958.
(WATCH the video or READ the story at the Washington Post, here)