Children still able to track Santa despite US shutdown
There were concerns the service, which is run from a Colorado military base, would not be able to continue during the shutdown.
Tuesday 25 December 2018 03:40, UK
The US government's shutdown may have ruined Christmas for nearly a million adults but children are still able to call Father Christmas to tell him how good they have been.
The military, which runs NORAD Tracks Santa from the Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, says it will continue to take calls as he makes his way around the world.
It is funded by the Department of Defence so there were concerns the Santa tracker would not make it to its 63rd consecutive year after the government partially shutdown on Saturday over Donald Trump's Mexican border wall funding.
The shutdown means 800,000 federal employees will not be paid from Saturday and many government operations will be disrupted.
However, the Santa tracker budget was approved earlier this year and the phones are manned by 1,500 civilian and military volunteers answering the phones for children calling 1-877-HI-NORAD.
The Santa tracker became a Christmas Eve tradition in 1955 when a child accidentally called the Continental Air Defence (CONAD) command in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
CONAD monitored a far-flung radar network for signs of a nuclear attack on the US.
Colonel Harry Shoup picked up the phone that day expecting to talk to a military general but got a child who wanted to speak to Santa Claus after a local paper ran an ad inviting kids to call Santa, but mistakenly gave CONAD's number.
The colonel quickly realised what had happened and played along.
Since then the tradition has grown into an elaborate operation which attracts tens of thousands of calls every year.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) - a joint US-Canadian operation which protects the skies over both countries - has taken over the Santa tracker.
Last year NORAD Tracks Santa received 126,000 calls, 18m website hits, 1.8m Facebook followers and 179,000 more on Twitter.
There are 160 phones to handle the calls and new volunteers get a help book which lets them know what kind of questions children may ask.
Big screens around the room show a Santa icon making progress around the globe and US and Canadian officers do live TV interviews from the phone rooms.
"It really gets you into the Christmas spirit," said Madison Hill, a student at Mississippi State University who got involved through Air Force family members stationed in Colorado Springs.
"There are Christmas carols in the background, everyone's very friendly, happy to be there."
One year, she took a call from a boy who began reading a very long Christmas list.
"I remember having to cut him off after the 10th present or so," she said, explaining to him that she had to take calls from other children.
A girl told Ms Hill she wanted to warn Santa not to bump into a bell hanging on her door.
"I think she wanted Santa to be quiet and not wake her up," she said.
Sometimes volunteers have to deal with unexpected calls, including a child from Newton, Connecticut in 2012 asking if Santa could bring extra toys for families who lost children in the Sandy Hook mass shooting that year.
NORAD's Lieutenant-General Christopher J. Coates said Santa had a tough job but they were confident of a successful mission.
"We estimate based on previous years, that it'll take Santa all the whole 24 hours of Christmas Eve to deliver the gifts all around the world," he said.
"There are some storms that'll make tracking him a little bit challenging, but we're confident that he'll still get through."
Meanwhile, Mr Trump spent some time on Christmas Eve answering calls from children wanting to know where Santa is.
He asked a seven-year-old caller: "Are you still a believer in Santa? because at seven it's marginal, right?"