NORAD Tracks Santa in 6 Languages, Plus Dreidels

Posted by Alan Childress

I loved it as a kid when Walter Cronkite used radar to track Santa’s early-evening movements.  Here is the internet equivalent, including German, French, and Japanese:  NORAD Tracks Santa.  In fact this half-century tradition was born of a misprinted phone number a Sears store had used in a 1955 ‘hotline’ promotion.  Today all sorts of celebrities tell their own stories (including a hairless Joey Lawrence–woaa–and the ubiquitous Edward James Olmos). 

This and other great new traditions are linked on the cool blog Electronic Ephemera, including: neat new toysJust Dreidels (my understanding is that they make them out of clay); a Toy Story remix with Requiem For A Dream (my understanding is that they make them out of claymation); a 4096 Color Wheel that just might cause seizures; and the Church of Dudeism with the option of being ordained.  Two years ago EE linked an Ernest Hemingway version of ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, by one James Thurber — plus a pumpkin waffles recipe.

And last year EE posted this still-viable link to another Santa tracking system–this one by NASA.  Unlike NORAD’s service, this tracker apparently requires additional plug-ins (but inspires the line, “North Pole, we have a problem”).  Either way, let’s hope this generation of kids gets hooked on tracking Santa’s and Rudolph’s worldwide progress.