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Daily Record
Daily Record
Lifestyle
Nicola Roy

NORAD Santa Tracker 2022 LIVE: Follow Father Christmas delivering gifts on worldwide journey

There's just one more sleep to go until Christmas, and households with young kids will undoubtedly be full of excitement as the big day draws nearer and nearer.

Tonight is the night that Santa and his reindeers will set off on their journey around Scotland and the rest of the world, delivering presents and spreading joy amongst children.

And before the children go to sleep on Christmas Eve, you can show them exactly where Santa is in the world at that moment by checking out the Norad Track Santa app or site.

From around 11am GMT on December 24, parents can log in and spot St Nick on his sleigh as he embarks on his 41-million mile route across the globe.

You'll also be able to see the exact number of presents that he's delivered, and it's expected that nine million people worldwide will track Santa on his travels.

Santa will set off on his journey from his home in the North Pole, before heading to his first stop at the Republic of Kiribati in the central Pacific Ocean visiting 390,000 homes per minute - that’s 6.424 per second.

The app and site shows where Santa and his reindeer are, and how many presents they've delivered (NORAD)

Then he'll head off to New Zealand and Australia to pop presents under the trees of boys and girls there before zooming over to Asia and Africa and then finally arriving in the UK.

Stopping along the way to tuck into some mince pies, milk and cookies left out for him, and to feed carrots to the reindeer, he'll then head across the Atlantic to deliver gifts to people in the US, Canada, Mexico and end his journey in South America.

The NORAD Santa tracker began in 1955 in America, after an advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call Santa.

NORAD stands for the North American Aerospace Defense Command. As a pretty important organisation, they are responsible for keeping tabs on all US and Canadian airspace.

Instead of reaching Santa, the misprinted phone number put youngsters through to NORAD.

The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole.

Children can see exactly where Santa is on his present-delivering journey (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Any child who called the number was given an update on Santa's whereabouts, and that's how the tracker started.

Before becoming an interactive online tool, children could find out where Santa was by calling the NORAD hotline in December.

On Christmas Eve, click here to watch as Santa begins his journey at the North Pole - or download the NORAD Track Santa app to track him.

Or if you have Amazon Alexa, you can ask for Santa's location through the NORAD Tracks Santa skill for at any time on December 24.

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