It’s that time of year again, just one more sleep until Christmas morning and children (and parents) all over Swindon eagerly waiting to see a glimpse of Father Christmas on his one night trip around the world.
Don’t worry, he will be adhering to all of the social distancing rules and has tested negative to be able to start his round.
What’s great is you can track him with amazing technology, as the NORAD Santa tracker 2020 will allow eager kids and parents to keep tabs on our favourite guest as he makes his way across the globe.
NORAD’s tracking website, www.noradsanta.org, shows real-time animated updates of Father Christmas as he zips from country to country.
The site attracts some one million visitors every year and is run by about 1,500 elves.
Father Christmas will start his Christmas Eve at the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean and travels west, visiting the South Pacific first, then on to New Zealand and Australia.
After that, he travels up to Japan and Asia, across to Africa, then zooms on to Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Mexico and Central and South America.
The NORAD’s Santa tracker was launched in 1955 when a retail store in Colorado Springs, in the US, misprinted the phone number to the North Pole in a newspaper ad for children to call in and speak to Santa. The number actually rang through to a secret hotline at the Continental Air Defence Command, later renamed NORAD.
Commanding officer US Air Force Colonel Harry Shoup received a number of calls from children desperate to talk to Father Christmas.
He told them Santa had taken off from the North Pole and was dropping off gifts to kids around the world. From this day on NORAD ensured Christmas Eve was then spent tracking Father Christmas’s safe journey around the world.
