Thursday, December 23, 2010

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS ALERT! Track Santa Live on Christmas Eve!

Keep Tabs on This Guy
This post is quite possibly the most important post of the Christmas season. Ask your children or grand kids and they'll tell you that it is so. As a public service, I am obligated by my love for children to put this information out there for public consumption. Below you will find a few web sites that step to the fore each year at this time, to track the path of Santa Claus as he makes his annual trip around the world delivering goodies to boys and girls of all lands. The people behind these web sites use all the latest technology to track Santa on his journey to the four corners of the planet. I have it on good authority that Santa Trackers on every continent will be using not only RADAR, but satellites as well to keep a bead on Santa's sleigh by way of a special Global Positioning System, or GPS, to guide the Jolly Old Elf around any turbulent weather he might encounter in order to make his trip as safe as possible.

These web sites will be following Santa as he travels the globe on Christmas Eve night:
  • NORAD - This is the site that I normally use to track Santa for my kids. They are experts in Santa Tracking with many years experience. "NORAD (the Aerospace Defense Command of North America) is the one that gives us information on the journey of Santa. They have been tracking his movements since 1955 and online they showed people Santa’s position since 1998.
    The site of NORAD says that this tradition began by accident, as a newspaper misprinted an ad. The misspelled number in the ad made kids call NORAD instead of the local store, and the operators told the kids where Santa was located with the help of their radar. Since the, each year, volunteers and staff watch for Santa’s ride and let people know where he is."
  • SantaClaus.net - When you click on the link to SantaClaus.net, you'll find many activities to keep you busy in between updates on Santa's flight. There are games, letters to Santa, Naughty and Nice Lists and you can even get a phone call from Santa himself!
  • SantaTrackerOnline.com - Another web location to keep an eye on Santa's progress. they also provided almost all of the information on NORAD (above)
  • Where's Santa Now? - These folks are located at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and they use the most modern tools to track Santa.
In my opinion, as a 50 year plus veteran of Santa Tracking, the web sites listed above offer the most detailed and latest information on the flight of Saint Nick on Christmas Eve. They are all FREE and will be available anywhere you have an internet connection, including your cell phone. I hope you'll find one or more of them useful.

Merry Christmas !!!

Twas the Night Before Christmas (Texas Style)

On Bubba and Leroy and Jim Bob and Gus
'Twas the night before Christmas, in Texas, you know.  
 Way out on the prairie, without any snow.  
 Asleep in their cabin, were Buddy and Sue,  
 A dreamin' of Christmas, like me and you.  
   
 Not stockings, but boots, at the foot of their bed,  
 For this was Texas, what more need be said,  
 When all of a sudden, from out of the still night,  
 There came such a ruckus, it gave me a fright.  
   
 And I saw 'cross the prairie, like a shot from a gun,  
 A loaded up buckboard, come on at a run,  
 The driver was "Geein" and "Hawin", with a will,  
 The horses (not reindeer) he drove with such skill.  
   
 "Come on there Buck, Poncho, & Prince, to the right,  
 There'll be plenty of travelin' for you all tonight."  
 The driver in Levi's and a shirt that was red,  
 Had a ten-gallon Stetson on top of his head.  
   
 As he stepped from the buckboard, he was really a sight,  
 With his beard and moustache, so curly and white.  
 As he burst in the cabin, the children awoke,  
 And were so astonished, that neither one spoke.  
   
 And he filled up their boots with such presents galore,  
 That neither could think of a single thing more.  
 When Buddy recovered the use of his jaws,  
 He asked in a whisper, "Are you really Santa Claus?"  
   
 "Am I the real Santa? Well, what do you think?"  
 And he smiled as he gave a mysterious wink.  
 Then he leaped in his buckboard, and called back in his drawl,  
 "To all the children in Texas, Merry Christmas, You-all"  

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All Original Material © Toby Shoemaker