It’s not Christmas Eve, but the countdown to Santa’s magical journey has begun.

Join the official countdown at NORAD’s Santa Tracker website, where you’ll also be able to follow the path of Santa and his reindeer once they leave the North Pole.

There will be minute-by-minute coverage of Santa’s location as he delivers gifts to the children of the world at noradsanta.org, and on Google Maps and Google Earth. this year, NORAD’s Santa Tracker is on Twitter, Facebook and Picasa, too.

It’s known from Santa Cam images that he uses a herd of flying reindeer for quick transportation, but detailed information remains elusive after all these years.

“The fact that Santa Claus is more than 16 centuries old, yet does not appear to age, is our biggest clue that he does not work within time as we know it,” the Santa Tracker website says.

“His Christmas Eve trip may seem to take around 24 hours, but to Santa it may last days, weeks or even months in standard time,” it says.

“Santa would not want to rush the important job of distributing presents to children and spreading Christmas happiness to everyone, so the only logical conclusion is that Santa functions within a different time-space continuum than the rest of us do.”

The tradition of tracking Santa began in 1955, when children began calling CONAD, the predecessor to NORAD, hoping to speak with Santa Claus.

A misprint in a department store advertisement resulted in a big mix-up. 
Children dialing Santa’s telephone number were mistakenly put through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “Hotline” instead.

The original “Santa Tracker,” the late Col. (retired) Harry Shoup of the U.S. Air Force, the director-in-chief at the time, had his staff check the radar for signs that Santa was making his way south from the North Pole, the site says.

“Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.”

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