We’re back for another year of Santa Tracking, where we’ll be bringing you all the updates from the top Santa trackers all over the world – and this year, we’ll be live-blogging the experience for you too.
There are a variety of ways to track Santa these days thanks to the advent of the smartphone, so if you’re looking to find out precisely when you’re going to get your presents, that’s what we’re here for.
The tradition began in 1955 when, legend has it, a child mistakenly called Colorado Springs’ Continental AIr Defense Command (CONAD) Center after a misprint in a Sears catalog for a number to call to speak to Santa.
The American military realized this was a PR dream, and began putting out press releases on the whereabouts of Santa each year, with comical stories added in too – in the early 1980s, a hotline was added to allow people to call to find out where he s.
Fast forward to today and there are a number of ways to find out what’s happening to Santa – and these are the key ones to look out for.
Santa Tracker: Norad vs Google
You’ve got two main choices when it comes to tracking Santa – both offer different ways of following jolly ol’ St Nick, but it depends on the experience you’re looking for.
The original way of following Santa and, some would say, the best. This website, run by the US military, fuses gruff colonels presenting a video about Santa Claus with live, up-to-the-minute info on where the man in the big red suit is.
You can download the app on the App Store or Google Play Store, and from there you’ll be presented with a number of mini games to play as well as being able to follow the progress of the present giving live.
It’s a far more rudimentary experience than other trackers out there, lacking a lot of polish and website design.
However, it’s also the most popular and has the heart-warming history behind it – as well as an army of volunteers ready to take your call to find out where Santa is.
NORAD has also added in an AI chatbot called Radar to help you spot Santa too, if you can’t be bothered with all that talking, which is a bit lovely.
How to play the Santa games on mobile
Every year, when we publish this guide, we have people wondering how to play the games on mobile as the big ‘PLAY!’ button in the middle of the screen sometimes fails and will only ever give you random game or video anyway. Well, just go to the Santa Tracker site on a mobile browser, click the three lines in the top left-hand corner and see all the games to play. (Note – the ‘install’ option, which tells you to ‘Add to Home Screen’ doesn’t work on iPhones).
A more recent addition to the Santa tracking mix, Google’s Santa Tracker has still been going since 2004, combining the power of Google Maps with the savvy knowledge of where Father Christmas is.
While Google doesn’t have the same satellite tracking power of NORAD, one has to assume the search giant has struck a deal with the North Pole to figure out where he is in real time using search and radar and lazers and… stuff. Don’t ask us to interpret the magic.
Backing up the Santa Tracker are a whole host of minigames to play, as well as a month-long website encouraging children to learn to code while they encounter a winter wonderland.
There are some pro-Google tools moments in this Santa Tracker – the Quick Draw game is designed to teach Google’s image recognition Tensor to improve, which feels a bit odd – but it’s a wonderfully-designed site and arguably the most visually accessible way to follow Santa.
You can download the app from the Google Play Store, but in our eyes the mobile site is just as good and accessible for iPhone users, plus Google’s Santa Tracker has the best, simple-to-use desktop experience too.
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