Watch Santa’s Delivery Journey! Live NORAD Tracker Back Up After Glitch, Carried By TV Stations Worldwide

Dominic Patten
·2 min read

Technology wasn’t Santa Claus’ best friend this morning, but in the Spirit of Christmas everything is A-OK now, according to NORAD.

Carried by TV stations and online platforms around the world, the beloved Santa Tracker that the good folks at North American Aerospace Defense Command put up every holiday season suffered a glitch this Christmas Eve. For about an hour, the live video (watch Santa’s travels above) was unable to provide specific locations for the Fatman and his reindeer.

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Not that all was lost.

As the problem was being dealt with NORAD volunteers and live operators on the phone (yep 1-877-Hi-NORAD) and on social media kept kids and anxious parents up to date on where Santa was and where he was heading next. NORAD did not respond to a request today from Deadline about what went wrong, but we’ll give them a pass today, as they are kinda busy.

Now in its 68th year, this self-described “special mission” as Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Patrick Ryder called it a couple of days ago finds around 1,000 American and Canadian military personal based at NORAD HQ in Colorado pitch in starting at 6 am ET to follow Santa’s journey around the globe. Online over the past decade, the Santa Tracker also give updates on the number of presents St. Nick has delivered.

The feed is on the NORAD Santa site and app. Once a staple of radio updates, the feed is now also snagged by local TV stations – like ABC 7 in Chicago and Sky News over in Europe – all over the world and on YouTube.

Having started out as a mistake back in the heart of the Cold War in 1955 with a call from a Colorado child who was trying to reach Santa, the Santa Tracker took in over 73,000 calls last year and generated millions and millions of views.

FYI- Santa is making sure our astronauts get some gifts too. According to NORAD, he’s about 5 minutes away from visiting the orbiting International Space Station.

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