On this date (Dec 24) in 1955, a Colorado Springs newspaper ran an ad for Sears, telling kids that they could call Santa… the ad included a phone number. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but it clearly has the hots for serendipity… the phone number was misprinted in the ad. So instead of calling the local Sears holiday hotline, kids began calling CONAD (the Continental Air Defense Command Center). The duty officer that night – a Colonel Shoup – instructed his staff to give a “current location” for Santa Claus to any child that called. This tradition kept going when CONAD was replaced by NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) in 1958.
What started as an act of wisdom and holiday spirit from a single colonel has turned into quite the enterprise. Santa’s gone hi-tech now – a website, a partnership with Google, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and of course, there’s an app for that…
I think it’s a beautiful thing that NORAD takes time out of their usual vital work (which consists, at least partly, of maintaining readiness to contact Will Smith immediately upon any hint of extra-terrestrial invasion) to provide this wonderful service. Kids of all ages greatly appreciate the work that these volunteers and sponsors do to help spread the magic of Christmas.
On a personal level, I am already all over this. We have the most sophisticated satellite imaging systems known to man – we can count how many hairs are out of place on Justin Bieber’s pointy little head… so I’m planning on getting some advance scoop on what ol’ Saint Nick’s bringing me!
C’mon flying car!!