NEW YORK, NY – The North American Aerospace Defense Command’s yearly tracking of Santa Claus is getting high-tech!

NORAD, or the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has carried on the tradition of tracking Santa Claus throughout Christmas Eve for curious children!

It began in 1955, when a Sears advertisement misprinted “Santa’s” phone number. Children actually began calling NORAD’s predecessor, CONAD. The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, played along and had staff give updates on Santa’s location to the kids.

These days, children can not only call the hotline, they can also track Santa online using Google Earth! Users can watch and track Santa Claus in real time as he travels the world.

Here is some footage from Santa’s trip last year:

To check out the tracking site, visit http://www.noradsanta.org. Or, on Christmas Eve, call 1-877-HI-NORAD to speak to volunteers at the NORAD Track Santa Command Center!

UPDATE: Through a miraculous combination of teamwork and ingenuity, Santa Claus was saved and Christmas proceeded as scheduled.

Numerous attempts to free Santa from inside a giant block of ice failed. Blowtorches refused to start as a surprise blizzard came roaring through. Hammers and chisels made hardly a dent in the solid ice.

Finally, a daring combination of fresh chocolate chip cookies and gamma radiation saved the day. Head of the North Pole research department Sprinkles Von Bohrstein came up with the holiday saving idea to combine Santa’s favorite treat with a gamma powered “Cheer Emitter.” Mrs. Claus made up a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies and placed them in front of the frozen Santa. Then Von Bohrstein aimed the experimental device at him, hoping the ice could be broken from the inside out.

Immediately results could be seen as Santa become hotter from the radiation and began to grow in size. With the thunderous crash of ice the mutated Santa Claus shattered his icy prison with a bellowing “Ho HO HOOOO!”

After a few cookies and a hug from his wife, Mr. Claus returned to his old self and immediately began preparations for his annual flight.

Receipt of presents by children all over the world proves that Santa Claus was able to make his run despite the setbacks. However due to his late start several wealthy families in Beverly Hills received glittery IOU’s attached to their fireplace.

December 24, 2008

NORTH POLE – Santa Claus has yet again been frozen in a block of ice.

Delaying critical Christmas preparation, the elf union is working overtime to thaw out the yule time celebrity.

After going on his traditional pre-holiday bender, Santa drunkenly fell asleep outside the reindeer stables and was quickly frozen in a solid block of ice.

Experts believe he may have been hitting the bottle harder than usual due to his difficulty in receiving a federal bailout.  Unsubstantiated reports say that Mrs. Claus may have been one of the unlucky victims taken in by the Madoff financial scheme.

A representative of the United Elvin Workers union confirmed that this is not the first time Santa has been frozen solid.  “He does this every year.  We’d hoped he would stay inside this year and just need a coffee the next morning.  But it looks like we’ll need to dust off the glitter-powered blowtorches again.”

Will Santa be freed in time? Updates will be forthcoming as the diminutive labor union works to save Christmas.