The progress of Santa Claus and his reindeers around the world can be tracked online courtesy of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
SANTA Claus is coming to town - and the organisation responsible for monitoring North American airspace is helping your kids track him as he completes his whirlwind journey around the globe.
The Santa tracker set up by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a US-Canada joint operation, said that at 1515 GMT, Santa and his overworked reindeer had just passed over the Philippines' capital Manila.
The website, www.noradsanta.org, is available in eight languages and allows children to find Santa's location and upcoming stops on his trip. It also tracks the number of presents left for children. So far? More than 1.2 billion.
After leaving the North Pole, Santa will criss-cross the world until 0900 GMT Tuesday, when all the gifts will have been placed under Christmas trees.
NORAD normally has the very serious task of protecting the United States and Canada, detecting any attacks from the air or the launching of nuclear weapons. But each year, it uses its powerful technology to provide Christmas cheer.
NORAD pulls out all the stops to locate Saint Nick, stopping at no fewer than four high-tech systems: radar, satellites, "Santa Cams" and, yes, fighter jets. After all, Santa travels "faster than starlight."
Volunteers take phone calls from children asking where Santa is and when he will deliver presents to their house, during the annual NORAD Tracks Santa Operation. Picture: Brennan Linsley
"We're the only organisation that has the technology, the qualifications, and the people to do it. And, we love it! NORAD is honored to be Santa's official tracker!" NORAD says on its website.
The first shift of Santa tracker volunteers started taking calls early Monday, telling children - and some adults - when Santa is due at their house. The last shift won't end until nearly 24 hours later.
Some kids wanted to know more than where Santa was and when he would be at their house.
"How old is Santa?" one caller asked. The answer to that one is in the FAQs that NORAD hands out to volunteers: "It's hard to know for sure, but NORAD intelligence indicates Santa is at least 16 centuries old."
Other questions require the volunteers to think fast:
"How do reindeer fly?"
"How many elves does Santa have?"
"Does Santa leave presents for dogs?"
One little boy from Missouri phoned in to ask what time Santa delivered toys to heaven, said volunteer Jennifer Eckels, who took the call. The boy's mother got on the line to explain that his sister had died this year.
"I think Santa headed there first," Eckels told him.
NORAD suggests its volunteers tell callers that Santa won't drop off the presents until all the kids in the home are asleep. The response depends on the caller's age.
"Ohhhhhhh," said an 8-year-old from Illinois, as if trying to digest a brand-new fact.
"Thank you so much for that information," said a grateful mother from Michigan.
NORAD's Santa tracking tradition dates back to 1955, when a department store ad in a Colorado newspaper, which offers to connect children with the cheerful Christmas icon, included an incorrect phone number.
It mistakenly directed them to the hotline of NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defence Command (CONAD).
To avoid disappointing the little ones, the director of operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, ordered his staff to check the radar to see where Santa might be and update the children on his location.
US Air Force Brigadier General Richard Scobie volunteers at the annual NORAD Tracks Santa Operation. Over a thousand volunteers handle more than 100,000 thousand phone calls from children around the world every Christmas Eve.
CONAD officers played along, and word spread that this Cold War military command charged with guarding the US against an attack by the Soviet Union was also telling kids where Santa was.
Since then, NORAD Tracks Santa has gone global, progressing through bulletins on AM radios and black-and-white TVs to updates on Facebook, Twitter and smartphone aps.
Last year, volunteers answered almost 102,000 calls, nearly 25 per cent more than the previous year. They also answered more than 7,700 emails (noradtrackssanta@outlook.com).
The NORAD Tracks Santa website attracted 18.9 million unique visitors from 220 countries and territories during December 2011.
This year, the program has more than 1 million likes on Facebook and more than 114,000 followers on Twitter days before the tracking operation got under way.
NORAD maintains that Santa is the real deal.
"Mountains of historical data and more than 50 years of NORAD tracking information leads us to believe that Santa Claus is alive and well in the hearts of people throughout the world," it says.
And it warns children that Santa's route "can be affected by weather."
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