WASHINGTON — Santa Claus has wrapped up his journey this year to deliver presents to homes across the globe.
NORAD tracked Santa on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, just like they've done for more than six decades. While his trip went smoothly again, the website for NORAD's Santa Tracker had a bit of trouble keeping up early on.
About an hour after the stream began at 6 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, people from all around the world began noticed the tracker wasn't appearing.
The official NORAD Santa Tracker Facebook page explained that they were having some technical difficulties with the site. After nearly an hour, everything had been sorted out and the map was live.
According to NORAD's Santa Tracker, a total of 7,883,693,263 were delivered this year.
While the Santa Tracker website has been online for several weeks, the real show got underway on the morning of Christmas Eve. Starting at 4 a.m. Eastern on Dec. 24, NORAD began tracking Santa with updates from around the world.
Callers could also dial in throughout the day to find out where Santa is on his journey. Lt. Sean Carter, the NORAD Tracks Santa Program Manager, said volunteers took more than 53,000 calls in 2021, though that's well below the pre-COVID peak of 150,000 calls in 2019. The volunteer staffing has had to be reduced the past couple of years due to pandemic concerns.
The military command has been fielding calls since 1955, when Air Force Col. Harry Shoup — the commander on duty at NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command — fielded a call from a child who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a newspaper department store ad, thinking she was calling Santa.
A fast-thinking Shoup quickly assured his caller that he was. And the tradition began.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden also participated in the tradition, answering calls to the Santa tracking service. It is a longstanding tradition for first ladies, but the president joined in 2021 as well.
Today, most early calls come from Japan and Europe, and as the day goes on the callers from the U.S. and Canada climb.
In addition to the phone center and online site, Amazon Alexa users has the ability to ask for Santa's location using the NORAD Tracks Santa skill on Dec. 24 and OnStar subscribers could use the OnStar service to locate Santa.
NORAD’s mission is to watch the skies above North America for any potential threats. Come early Christmas Eve, the Santa operation begins when a cluster of radar stations in northern Canada and Alaska pick up an infrared signature emanating from Rudolph’s nose. NORAD’s array of geostationary satellites above the Earth monitor the journey.
“We Have the Watch,” is NORAD’s military-mission motto.
And when it comes to Santa, NORAD adds:
“Santa calls the shots. We just track him.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.