The North American Aerospace Defense Command will track Santa Claus on December 24 and is celebrating the program’s 70th anniversary.

What’s Happening: NORAD launched its Santa tracking website on December 1 at www.noradsanta.org. The website features Santa’s North Pole Village with a holiday countdown, games, movie theater, holiday music, and web store.

What’s Important: On December 24, people worldwide can call 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723) from 4 a.m. to midnight Mountain Standard Time to ask live operators about Santa’s location. NORAD is introducing a web-based calling option so children without phone access can call the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center directly from the noradsanta.org website.

How This Affects Real People: Families can track Santa’s journey across the globe on December 24 through the website, phone calls, and social media. Virtual translation services will support more than 200 languages through the call center.

The Timeline: The NORAD Tracks Santa website launched on December 1. Live operators will be available on December 24 from 4 a.m. to midnight Mountain Standard Time. Families can continue following Santa’s flight until 3 a.m. on December 25 by calling the Interactive Voice Response system or visiting the website.

What Else to Know: The website works in nine languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese and Korean. The official NORAD Tracks Santa app is in the Apple App and Google Play stores. NORAD Tracks Santa will also be on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, Amazon Alexa, SiriusXM and OnStar.

As is our tradition, The Georgia Sun will also host the tracker live on our site.

The Big Picture: NORAD monitors and defends North American airspace 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. NORAD is a United States and Canada bi-national organization charged with aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning for North America.

“I’m thankful to whoever the first person was who thought: ‘Let’s uproot a fir tree from the yard, bring it into the house, throw some lights on it, and put a random assortment of stuff on it as a way to celebrate the holiday.’”