It’s the question every good little girl and boy asks on Christmas Eve: When is Santa coming?
As it has done every year since the 1950s, a Canadian and American defence agency tracked the jolly old man’s path around the globe in his reindeer-powered sleigh.
A 3-D, interactive website at www.noradsanta.org showed Santa on his delivery route, allowing users to click and learn more about the various cities along the way.
The Santa tracker presented by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) dates to 1955, when a Colorado newspaper advertisement printed a phone number to connect children with St Nick but mistakenly directed them to the hotline for the military nerve centre.
To avoid disappointing the little ones, NORAD’s 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.
President Donald Trump joined in the NORAD tradition on Sunday, answering the phone from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“What would you like more than anything?” the president asked one child.
“Building blocks, that’s what I’ve always liked too. I always loved building blocks,” Trump said after the child responded.
Another asked help for his hospitalised grandmother.
“So you want your grandma to get out of the hospital? That’s what your wish is? That’s great. That’s better than asking for some toy or something,” Trump said.
“Your grandma’s gonna be good, okay, she’s gonna be good.”
First Lady Melania Trump also took calls: “How are you? Merry Christmas. Are you tracking Santa? Do you know where he is right now?” she asked.
“As soon as you go to sleep, Santa will be there.”
When not spreading holiday cheer, NORAD conducts aerospace and maritime control and warning operations — including monitoring for missile launches from North Korea, something that may have been on Santa’s mind as he passed over the country’s capital Pyongyang.
“NORAD radars have sensed movement near the North Pole. It appears that the elves have finished loading Santa’s sleigh and Santa has lifted off! Even loaded with all the gifts and goodies, Santa’s sleigh seems to be moving lightning fast,” the website said in a video clip at the launch of Santa’s global journey.
As of 1100 GMT, Santa had made his way back to the North Pole, having left more than 7.2bn gifts in his wake.
Volunteers manning the NORAD phone line included military members in uniform.
One soldier completed his look with a camouflage Santa hat, according to photos on the website’s Twitter account.
The Santa tracker “has become a magical tradition for generations of families everywhere,” General Lori Robinson, commander of the US Northern Command and NORAD, told Politico.
“While certainly a reminder that we have the watch defending North America, our ultimate goal is to provide goodwill and cheer during the holiday season.”
Volunteers are armed with a 14-page handbook detailing the “tracking operation,” Politico reported.
“When a rocket or missile is launched, a tremendous amount of heat is produced — enough for the satellites to see them,” it says. “Rudolph’s nose gives off an infrared signature similar to a missile launch.
The satellites detect Rudolph’s bright red nose with no problem.”
lSanta Claus arrived on Sunday in Alexandria, Virginia, not by sleigh or in a parade, but on waterskis towed by a power boat chopping the cold water of the Potomac River.
In a tradition that started in 1986, Santa showed up to the town across the river from the US capital dressed in an original costume and accompanied by a reindeer, also on waterskis, a yeti, and the Grinch, according to posts on social media.
The stunt began when an Alexandria-based office supplies salesman was brainstorming with his friends at a holiday party and decided it would be funny if them water-skied down the Potomac in a Santa suit.
The first one to do it refers to himself only as “Santa Emeritus.”
Everyone in on the gag remains anonymous, according to the Washington Post.
Despite a temperature of about 5 degrees Celsius, the group of water-skiers put on a show that in previous years included flying elves, Frosty the Snowman, toy soldiers and other Christmas characters on jet skis.
The event draws hundreds of spectators to the riverbank.
Santa Emeritus passed his duty to another waterskier in 2011 and handed over the event’s organising duties to “Papa Noel” who told the Post he begins putting the show together in July.
The organisation includes overseeing the all-volunteer event and making sure they pull off the finale of reindeer waterskiing beside Santa.
lMillions of people in the northern half of the United States woke up to a white Christmas yesterday thanks to separate winter weather systems that blasted the region.
Arctic air is dominating northern US states, with bitter cold and wind chills, the National Weather Service said.
Snow was forecast across an area from the Pacific Northwest to the northern Rockies, including lower elevations.
Accuweather said a winter storm was causing the weather conditions in the north-west, while a “nor’easter” storm was spinning over the north-east, bringing heavy snow to that area.
People in the Pacific Northwest could see freezing rain, and there was also a slight risk of freezing rain over parts of southern New England.
The conditions meant travellers heading out on Christmas day faced slick roads, with some airport delays possible, Accuweather said.
Hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled, according to flight tracking website flightaware.com.
States bordering the Great Lakes and most of New England were experiencing widespread snow and gusty winds on Christmas morning.
Up to 30cm of snow is possible in Maine on Christmas Day, and up to 1m and 30cm of lake-effect snow may occur in New York state east of Lakes Erie and Ontario, the weather service said.
The snow will easily make it a white Christmas for the area.
It takes only 2.5cm of snow to be recorded as such, according to the weather service.