Norad
 

Woooo, this is a bit late and I didn't even know of this until the day of Christmas.

Norad tracks Santa Claus!
Now, I thought that was really cool!

CNN news link

NORAD Santa Tracking link

I teach kids from kindy up through High School.

Japan does not really partake in the Santa / Jesus thing but many kids and non-believer parents do try to some extent to continue the fun about Santa until the kids finally realize ... doh ...

Interesting that about 80% of Jr. and High School kids do believe to some extent. Many say they want the dream/myth to continue. Those who stopped believing can't those nasty bandits in action ...

It's sort of interesting when you see their faces when you tell them that the US Postal Service is even in on the deal. Now that I can say even Missile Command NORAD is on the deal ... I wonder what the double punch will do :D


I do stick away from the religious side of this equation since I believe in the more Danish/German version. I also do not try to force my beliefs on the kids but rather try to let them make an educated decision on their own. The reason is because I think that the Christmas spirit of giving and being nice is actual fun.

However, back to NORAD. It's pretty cool that the military is actually using their time and facilities to track something that is important for little kids.

To the Scrooges and humbugs out there -- dreams and fantasies are important to kids!

Late Merry Christmas all SmileWavy

Merry Christmas.

Seriously dude, you never heard of this before?

Dead serious :( :( :(
And I've been on the net for since the beginning of time :( :(

Crap... Round here even the news stations show this on xmas eve...

that is what I was thinking about Sid, but maybe they don't get that human interest soft news in the Land of the Rising Sun.

TV sucks over here!
errr, not the units but what you can get. I had to do cable to watch House, and Jamie Oliver (British Chef)

A least Santa is gaining ground for mind share !

What is something air cooled engines have in common? I'll take combustion engines for $2000, Alex.

The net???? Al Gore was only a kid when the tracking started.

NORAD's been tracking him since the '50's. Every radio/TV station, etc.

It was started by accident; the Sears store in Colorado Springs had an ad in the paper for kids to call to get Santa's location on Christmas Eve, had a guy all set up to answer.

The number was misprinted in the paper, and the number listed was NORAD's predecessor.

The Colonel that answered the phone played along with the kids and the staff started 'tracking' Santa. Giving updates to kids all evening. Ended up on local then national radio/TV. Been doing it for over 50 years.