How Do You Track Santa on Christmas Eve? NORAD, Google and Bedtime

How did NORAD start tracking Santa?

It all started with an ad. In December 1955, Sears ran an ad in *The Gazette*, the Colorado Springs newspaper, inviting children to call Santa at ME 2-6681. According to Wikipedia, the number was a single digit away from the line of the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), the air defense command based in the city, which was then watching the skies for a Soviet attack.

That evening, Colonel Harry Shoup, the officer on duty, picked up a restricted line. A child on the other end asked for Santa. Shoup played along. Interviewed by the Associated Press in 1999, he remembered answering, "Ho, ho, ho, I am Santa." He also admitted that his crew "was looking at me like I had lost it."

The calls kept coming. Shoup told his staff to track the sleigh and answer the children. His own children would later remember a big glass board used to track airplanes over the United States and Canada, on which someone had drawn a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. By December 23 of that first year, the Associated Press was reporting that CONAD was tracking Santa. Radio stations started calling Shoup every year to ask where the sleigh was.

In 1958, NORAD, the command shared by the United States and Canada, took over the tradition. It has never stopped since, not even in 2018, when more than 1,500 volunteers staffed the phones despite a federal government shutdown. Historian Gerry Bowler of the University of Manitoba calls it one of the few modern additions to the Santa Claus story that have really stuck.

How do you track Santa with NORAD?

NORAD's official tracking lives at noradsanta.org, online since 1997. It is available in nine languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese and Korean. Updates also go out on NORAD's Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube accounts. Tracking starts early on the morning of December 24, Mountain Time, over the international date line in the Pacific.

• By phone: 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) is answered on December 24 from 4 a.m. to midnight Mountain Time, which is 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. Eastern.
• Through the website: since 2025, you can call straight from noradsanta.org, which makes it easier outside North America.
• On the map: the sleigh moves from city to city, westward from the Pacific, following the night.

Behind the screens are real volunteers. According to the Associated Press, more than a thousand people, American and Canadian, take turns on December 24 in a decorated hangar at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, NORAD's home. They took about 380,000 calls on Christmas Eve 2024. One volunteer, a Marine veteran, says she told a child that Santa travels "faster than starlight."

The program also has an unusual budget. It relies on corporate partners and isn't paid for by American or Canadian taxpayers. Google became its technology partner in 2007. Since 2012 the map has run on Analytical Graphics' Cesium platform, and in 2013 NORAD signed with Bing Maps, ending a five-year contract with Google.

How does Google's Santa Tracker work?

Google has been following Santa longer than most people realize. On December 1, 2004, Keyhole, a company Google had just bought, launched a "Keyhole Santa Radar" in its virtual globe software, the future Google Earth. It drew 25,000 viewers the first year and 250,000 the next. In 2007, Google and NORAD made their collaboration official, for five years.

Since that partnership ended, Google has run its own tracker at santatracker.google.com. On December 24, tracking starts around midnight in the easternmost time zone. Counters show how far Santa has traveled and how long until he reaches your city. Since 2018, the site has also offered games and activities that teach coding basics and Christmas traditions, and since 2015 its code has been public.

The two trackers are independent of each other, and the positions they show at the same moment can differ. For a little one, it makes no difference. But if your oldest is comparing two tabs, pick one for the evening and stick with it.

Tracking Santa on the village website

Our Santa Tracker follows the sleigh throughout the big December 24 tour. The map shows Santa's position, yours, and the cities and delivery areas. You can enter your address to see how far the sleigh is from you and an estimate of when it will arrive; the address stays in your browser and is never sent to our servers.

The page also shows a countdown to Santa's visit at your home, news from the village and the elves, and a gallery of "magical moments" from the tour. Its advice to children is simple: be in bed before 9:30 p.m. Santa follows the night around the Earth, from east to west, and he only stops while children are asleep.

What time does Santa come to our house?

NORAD gives a careful answer. Santa usually stops between 9 p.m. and midnight, local time, and history shows he only arrives once children are asleep. It is a handy rule: it gives no exact time, and it makes sleep the condition of his visit.

Time zones work in your favor. Tracking begins over the Pacific, where December 25 arrives first. Santa crosses Asia and Oceania while American families are still eating breakfast and lunch, reaches Europe in the afternoon Eastern time, and only gets to North America in the evening. Kids can watch him draw closer for hours. The full story of this race against the night is in how does Santa deliver presents in one night.

How can you use Santa tracking to get kids to bed on Christmas Eve?

Christmas Eve piles up everything that keeps a child awake: a late meal, relatives, sugar and enormous excitement. Tracking can turn that energy into a countdown. The idea is to decide, before dinner, when you will check the map for the last time, and to make that moment the signal for bed.

To pick the time, keep sleep needs in mind. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends 10 to 13 hours per 24 hours, naps included, for ages 3 to 5, and 9 to 12 hours for ages 6 to 12. A four-year-old who will be up at 7 a.m. on the 25th, and they will be up early, should be asleep around 8 p.m.

A plan by age

• Ages 3 to 5: a look at the map after snack time, another at bath time, a last one in pajamas. In bed around 8 p.m., with the promise that he's "getting close."
• Ages 6 to 8: let them write down three cities and the times in a notebook. Last check after dessert, in bed around 9 p.m., ahead of the 9:30 p.m. our tracker recommends.
• Ages 9 and up: they can run the tracking for the little ones, call NORAD through the website or compare with Google. It is often the age when they become accomplices rather than believers, and they enjoy the role.

Should you tell kids NORAD really "sees" Santa?

NORAD presents its tracking as done with radar and other technologies. Wikipedia puts it more plainly: the website simulates tracking Santa. The adults know it, the military knows it, and that is exactly the charm of the tradition: a very serious institution that agrees, one night a year, to play with children.

For a young child, the map is one more piece of evidence, like the letter or the empty glass of milk. For a child who has doubts, it often becomes a question: "But how can radar see a sleigh?" You don't have to settle it that night. Turn the question back to them, and save the conversation for a calm moment. Our advice for that moment is in how to tell your child the truth about Santa.

Older kids often love learning that NORAD started with a wrong number in 1955, and that thousands of adults give up their Christmas Eve to answer the phone. It is a good way to show them that Christmas magic also means people choosing to make it happen.