I hope you have a very happy seasonal break and a good New Year (you can tell I’ve had my diversity training. Psssst – Happy Christmas!).

As a little bit of seasonal nonsense, especially if you have young children around, try this wonderful site from NORAD which tracks Santa using high-tech satellites “positioned in geo-synchronous orbit”, Google Earth etc etc as he delivers his presents all over the world on Christmas Eve.

Sadly, my offspring is now rather too old to particularly appreciate this web site, but the memory of when the tracking of Santa caused joy and amazement is still precious.

The website relates the wonderful tale of how this traditional tracking was born:

For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s Christmas Eve flight.

The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” 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 who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.