If there's one person whose arrival is most desperately awaited by countless hopeful kids all over the world, it's the red-cheeked, ho-ho-ing Father Christmas lugging around 60,000 tons of gifts.
Yes, Santa Claus is a very busy man. Right now, he's hard at work in the frosty North Pole poring over your good deeds and that time you threw that icky piece of broccoli and a tantrum.
While Santa is a jolly fella in every sense with his army of cheeky elves, nine reindeer and a booming laugh, he's also a mysterious cloaked figure of the night. He arrives when you're asleep, slides down the chimney with that big belly of his and takes his time gobbling up the milk and cookies you left out. Children all over the world spend a lot of time gazing out the window to spot Santa but in vain.
What if you could know exactly when Santa is going to slide down your chimney on Christmas Eve?
Snort in disbelief all you like but the North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD which monitors airspace with satellites and radars has been tracking Father Christmas since the past 60 years! Everything from which route he's taking to how long he spends at each location is monitored by NORAD to make sure you pretend to be asleep exactly when Santa blunders down your chimney.
How it all started
It all started on a wintry Christmas eve in 1955.
A Colorado Springs-based Sears offering kids a chance to talk to Santa, misprinted the telephone number to Santa's hotline. The number belonged to NORAD's then Commander-in-Chief Colonel Harry Shoup's hotline. A baffled Colonel Shoup picked up the phone to hear a child demanding to find out where Santa was. The commander got his staff to check the radar to see where Santa was and relayed the information to the kid. All children who called up that night were given Saint Nick's location so they knew when to expect him.
Since then NORAD has been tracking Santa and his entourage's location and sharing his location with all who want to know where he's zooming around at any given point. You can too, if you log on to their website here on 24th December.
How does NORAD track Santa?
Their radar system with installations across Canada's North and Alaska picks up on the bearded and plump figure kicking off from the North Pole on his sleigh. Their satellites with infrared sensors can pick up on heat. These satellites pick up on Rudolph's bright red and shiny nose which emits enough heat to track them. Their fighter jets also fly out to welcome Santa to North America with a cheery wave.
While Santa's his own boss in terms of the route he follows, it more or less stays the same according to NORAD. Here's the route he normally follows:
Starting from the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean, Santa travels west.
New Zealand: It's summer in New Zealand and Santa likes kicking off his boots and putting on jandals (sandals) with flowery beach-shorts instead.
Australia: In summery Australia, cake and non-alcoholic beer are left out to for Santa to cool off without getting tipsy.
Japan: The twinkling eyed father figure can't resist slurping up ramen whilst appreciating the dazzling lights strung up all over town.
Asia: Santa's been spotted licking his fingers in India after a good plate of piping hot vindaloo and rice.
Africa: Santa is secretly an adventure junkie who likes bungee jumping off Victoria Falls into the raging torrents of the Zambezi river after which he sundries himself.
Western Europe: Called Père Noël in France, he severely overdoses on croissants while strolling through the lively Christkindelsmarik, one of the biggest Christmas markets in Europe.
Canada: Santa has a rollicking time sliding down snow with his reindeer.
United States: Always polishes off plates of cookies and milk left out here.
Mexico: Was found here wiping sauce off his beard whilst holding a half-eaten taco.
Central America: Splashes around along the coastlines when nobody is looking.
South America: Santa makes sure he picks up bags of chocolate raisins here for Mrs Claus on his way home.
Santa does make unscheduled stops on his 178,899 miles journey. NORAD in 2007 tracked him at Paris and Shanghai and even on the side of I-270 outside Denver near a strip mall...
Here's what Father Christmas does every year
Now Santa will bring cheer and presents to everyone who believes in him but going around the world in 24 hours is no mean feat.
According to data dug up by the Telegraph, Santa must travel at 1,800 miles per second to visit an estimated 390,000 homes per minute or 6,424 per second to get a gift under the Christmas tree for all kids (and adults). For this arduous journey, Santa packs in about 71,764,000,000 calories for energy by binge-eating on mince pies, gingerbread, fruit cake and a bottle of rum he keeps swigging from.
How does he do it?
Santa, in that case, is either a genius scientist tinkering around in a lab, working experiments on his sleigh several feet under ice in the North Pole or he's a wizard zooming around effortlessly sprinkling magic dust behind him.
1. The speed at which he travels is impossible for us mere mortals but according to NORAD, Santa might be operating in a different space-time continuum. He might not perceive time as we do, so 24 hours for him might stretch out as long as weeks or months so that he can bring joy, cheer and of course, toys to all who wait for him.
2. Another theory is that there is a particle called Tachyon which can move faster than the speed of light. Einstein believed that this particle could travel faster than time. Now since Father Christmas is at least 16 centuries old, he and his army of elves in their subterranean laboratory might have figured out a nifty little trick to stuff the sleigh with these particles.
3. The folks scratching their heads over at HowStuffWorks? have come up with another theory involving Einstein's famous E = MC² formula where Einstein meant that mass is actually energy in a concentrated form. For those who were never pals with math, like me, C2 in the equation is the speed of light (300,000 miles per second) and M is mass. Now E (energy) has to be in tremendous amounts to help Santa and his reindeer, make the circuit around the world with all their load.
This could be done with a matter-antimatter engine. Lost you?
Antimatter is the opposite of matter and its particles are identical to normal particles just with opposite charges.
As the website says,
'When matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate each other, creating a complete conversion of matter into energy.'
The only problem is that antimatter is very scarce on Earth or so is believed, because nobody has managed to survive the ferocious North Pole cold. If Santa has a lot of antimatter hidden away in the North Pole, he and his elves could have created an uber-cool antimatter propulsion engine to whiz around with. Sweet ride.
However, this would give off a lot of gamma radiation which could harm Santa so he puts on a special red suit to block any radiation. NORAD confirms that his sleigh is multi-purpose and needs no refuelling so there may be some truth in this theory.
Don't believe me?
You can ask NORAD yourself here.
Have yourself a very merry Christmas. If you miss Santa too much, you can track him on the NORAD site on Christmas eve. As for me, I'll be keeping one eye open to hear the thud of Santa's enormous weight dropping down the chimney.
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