IT’S QUITE HARD to stay undetected when your main reindeer has such a bright red nose.
Then-Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed at the beginning of this month that Santa had once again been granted permission to enter Ireland’s airspace and that he had received word that everything should run on schedule.
Although spotting Santa’s sleigh with the naked eye is hard to pull off (you should be in bed anyway), dedicated professionals have devoted their Christmas Eves to making sure you don’t have to.
You need to travel pretty fast to get to every house in one night, but with the help of science, there are two great ways to keep an eye on where Daidí na Nollaig will visit next.
Every Christmas Eve, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) tracks Santa’s trip, beginning from his home at the North Pole and around the world as he delivers presents to children.
Although NORAD usually deals with North American airspace, it only makes sense that they would make an exception every year for the big guy in red.
As NORAD has spent so many years tracking Santa, it has built up a huge database of facts and statistics about Santa’s work and equipment.
The weight of presents at takeoff has been estimated by NORAD to be about 80,000 tons (that’s a lot of happy children tomorrow), but although they’re very good at their job, even NORAD can’t calculate the sleigh’s top speed.
NORAD’s tradition of tracking Santa began in 1955 when a young American boy rang a department store’s Christmas phone number but accidentally ended up on the line with the head of the airspace agency.
The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, answered the phone and instructed his staff to check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole.
67 years later, in collaboration with Microsoft, Amazon and a number of other companies, the agency’s website now offers games, videos and other activities as you sit around the Christmas tree.
If you don’t have a computer handy, NORAD also has apps on iOS, Android and Windows Phone to keep you up to date.
Another way to track Santa as he makes his journey around the world tonight is by using the Google Santa Tracker.
Google is the more colourful and animated way of tracking him, and the website even let’s you try your hand at coding in some Christmas-themed games.
Like NORAD, Google offers a mobile alternative to the tracker.
However, this is only available on Android.
Whichever metod you use to track Santa, it’s important to remember to get up to bed early and let the big man do his job in peace.
You’ll have plenty of evidence of his visit tomorrow morning!
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