NORAD Tracks Santa Worksheet Download

Look at that map with a sleigh zooming across it! This is NORAD Tracks Santa. On Christmas Eve you can watch Santa's trip on a website.

Did you know that website map started with a mistake? In 1955 a newspaper ad printed a phone number wrong. Children called a military command center instead of Santa.

Those calls rang where Colonel Harry Shoup was in charge. He told his workers to give the children Santa's location. Today volunteers still answer calls, all because of one wrong number!

Do you ever wonder where Santa is on Christmas Eve? Today, volunteers, who help for free, answer kids' calls. It began in 1955, when a newspaper ad had a wrong number.

That wrong number rang at a military office, a place where soldiers work. Colonel Harry Shoup, a leader there, picked up the phone. A small child on the line wanted to talk to Santa!

Shoup told his team to share Santa's location, or where he is. That began a tradition, something families do every single year. Now kids can even follow Santa online, thanks to one wrong number!

Wow, a printing mistake once sent Santa calls to a room full of soldiers! It happened in 1955, when a store ran a newspaper ad in Colorado Springs. The ad said, "Kids, call Santa!" but the phone number was printed wrong.

That number rang on a red phone at a military command center, a place that watched the sky to keep people safe. Colonel Harry Shoup was in charge, and he answered when a child called. Imagine hearing a small voice ask for Santa on that phone!

Colonel Shoup could have said "wrong number," but he had a kinder idea. He told his staff to give the children Santa's location. Every year after that, the calls returned, and the fun became a tradition, something families do again and again.

Those calls still come again and again, and volunteers at NORAD, the group that carries on the tradition, answer them. On Christmas Eve, a website shows Santa's route on a map. It all began with one wrong number and one kind colonel.

Imagine you are a colonel at your desk one evening in 1955, when a red telephone rings. Only a few people have that number, so you expect serious news. Instead, a small voice asks if you are Santa Claus! This really happened to Colonel Harry Shoup, who worked at a command center, a room where military leaders watch the skies.

So why was a child calling a room full of military leaders? A store's newspaper ad in Colorado Springs told kids to call Santa, but it printed the wrong phone number. It was the number of Colonel Shoup's red phone! When he understood, he told his staff to give each caller Santa's location.

Those first calls were only the beginning, because they grew into a tradition, something people do year after year. In 1958, the United States and Canada formed NORAD, a team that watches the skies over North America. NORAD kept answering the Santa calls, so a printing mistake became a Christmas Eve habit.

Today, that single red phone has grown into a whole crew of helpers. Every Christmas Eve, volunteers, people who help without being paid, answer calls from children in many countries. A website also shows Santa's route as he zooms across the world. Because one colonel answered a mistake with kindness, a wrong number from 1955 is still ringing through the holidays.

In December 1955, a bright red telephone rang on a desk at a military command center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The workers there watched the skies over North America for danger, so they expected serious business. Instead, a child's voice asked to speak with Santa Claus! Can you imagine being the officer who picked up?

The officer had no idea why a child was on the line, but the answer was hiding in a newspaper. A department store called Sears had printed an ad inviting kids to call Santa on a special phone number. There was one problem: the number contained a mistake, so the calls rang on the command center's private line instead. Before long, more and more children were dialing the same wrong number.

Soon the ringing reached Colonel Harry Shoup, who was in charge of the center's daily operations. He could have said it was the wrong number and hung up. Instead, once he understood the mix-up, he told his staff to give each child Santa's location. Years later, people would nickname him the "Santa Colonel."

That kind answer did not end when the night did. The command center kept taking Santa calls every December, and word of the tradition spread. In 1958, its work became part of NORAD, a team effort between the United States and Canada. Since then, Americans and Canadians have shared the Santa tradition.

Thanks to that teamwork, kids far beyond Colorado, maybe even you, can join the fun today. Every December 24, volunteers answer phone calls and emails from families around the world, and a website shows Santa's route. The website has been online since 1997, while NORAD's main job the rest of the year is watching the skies over North America. Just think: one misprinted phone number in a newspaper ad grew into a Christmas Eve tradition that has lasted more than 65 years.

Here's a puzzle: why would a military command center built to watch the skies over North America spend every Christmas Eve answering questions about Santa? The answer begins with one small typo in a newspaper ad. Today, when you visit the NORAD Santa website on December 24, you can follow a glowing map as Santa's route stretches across the globe. Behind the scenes, phones ring in a big room, and cheerful volunteers answer kids from all over the world.

That typo appeared in 1955, when a department store named Sears printed an ad in a Colorado Springs, Colorado, newspaper. The ad invited children to call Santa on a special phone number, but one digit was printed wrong. Instead of reaching Santa, the calls rang on a private line at the Continental Air Defense Command, a U.S. military center. Picture a child dialing on a rotary phone and hearing a military officer answer instead of Santa!

That officer was Colonel Harry Shoup, the director of operations, and he was not expecting a call from a child. At first he thought it was a prank, but when more children called, he realized what had gone wrong. Rather than hang up, he told his staff to give the children "Santa's location." Soon a room full of people whose job was watching the sky was happily reporting where Santa was headed.

That cheerful job might have ended after one night, but it became a yearly habit. In 1958, the United States and Canada formed NORAD, a partnership to defend North American skies, and it took over the Santa calls. Colonel Shoup became known as the "Santa Colonel," and people remember him for turning a mistake into a gift. Look at the chain of events: one wrong digit led to one kind choice, and that choice has lasted for well over sixty years.

Lasting that long meant keeping up with the times, so NORAD added a website in the late 1990s. According to NORAD, more than a thousand volunteers now answer phone calls and emails on Christmas Eve. NORAD says radar, satellites, and even fighter jets help it follow Santa's journey around the globe. All of it grew from a single misprinted number and a colonel who chose to play along.

It sounds like something a clever team of advertisers would dream up: the same military command that guards the skies over North America also follows Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. Here's the twist: nobody planned it at all. On December 24, glowing maps and screens show a bright sleigh streaking across oceans while volunteers in headsets answer calls from kids asking, "Where is Santa right now?" It looks like a movie set, yet it all began with one printing mistake. Can you imagine a typo growing into a tradition that has lasted for generations?

That mistake happened in 1955, when a Sears department store in Colorado Springs, Colorado, printed an ad inviting children to call Santa on a special phone line. The number in the ad was wrong, so the calls rang at the Continental Air Defense Command, a U.S. military center that watched the skies over the country. Kids had dialed a red hotline, a direct phone line meant only for very important calls, and Colonel Harry Shoup, the center's director of operations, picked up. At first, he thought it was a prank. Then he heard the tiny voice of a child who truly wanted to talk to Santa, and more calls followed.

Shoup could have hung up on those small voices, but he chose to turn a mix-up into a tradition. He told his staff to give each caller "Santa's location," and they took the job seriously. According to accounts of that night, the staff soon added a sleigh to the giant map used for tracking aircraft. In 1958, the United States and Canada joined their air defenses to form NORAD, now called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and the Santa calls came along. Notice that a place built for serious work still found room for a little wonder.

That tradition has traveled far from one red phone in Colorado. NORAD says more than a thousand volunteers now answer phone calls and emails from children around the world on Christmas Eve. Online, a website shows Santa's route as a moving map, and NORAD explains that it follows the sleigh with radar, satellites, and special "Santa Cams." Radar, a technology that bounces radio waves off objects to find where they are, is one of the same tools NORAD uses to watch North American skies all year. Even fighter jets get in on the fun, since NORAD says pilots greet the sleigh as it flies through the skies of Canada and the United States.

Jets escorting a sleigh might seem silly, but I think they show why this story still matters. Colonel Shoup could have brushed off a mistake, yet he answered with warmth, and people later gave him the nickname the "Santa Colonel." In my view, the best part is that the tradition grew out of kindness instead of a careful plan. Each Christmas Eve, families gather around screens and phones to share a moment of wonder together. All of it began with one wrong number in a newspaper ad.

Imagine a room glowing with giant screens, where volunteers in headsets answer one phone call after another, and every caller asks the same question: where is Santa right now? This is no movie scene; it happens every December 24, hosted by NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The rest of the year, its serious job is watching the skies over the United States and Canada. Its Christmas Eve tradition began with something far smaller than a radar blip: one wrong digit in a phone number, printed about seventy years ago.

That tiny typo appeared in a Colorado Springs newspaper ad in December 1955, just before Christmas. A department store, Sears Roebuck & Co., invited children to call Santa on a special phone line and printed the number for them. The number was wrong, however, so the calls rang at the operations center of the Continental Air Defense Command, or CONAD, where officers tracked aircraft during the tense years of the Cold War. Can you imagine sitting at a defense desk and hearing a small voice ask for Santa Claus, then another, and another?

Someone had to decide what to do about those ringing phones, and that person was Colonel Harry Shoup, the center's director of operations. He could have hung up and complained about a mix-up, but he recognized that the callers were children who had simply followed an ad. Instead, Shoup told his staff to give the children "Santa's location," and the crew began sharing updates on where Santa was headed. The staff reportedly marked Santa's path on the large map normally used to follow aircraft. Notice the word "location": it comes straight from military vocabulary, showing how the officers used everyday skills for a gentler purpose.

A kind act like that could have faded after one night, yet the calls returned the next December and the staff kept answering. In 1958, the United States and Canada joined their air defense forces in a shared command, NORAD, which inherited the Santa tradition. Shoup eventually became known as the "Santa Colonel," a nickname showing how closely people linked him to the custom. Part of the reason it lasted may be that it cost little, delighted children, and showed the public a friendly side of a serious organization.

That friendly side now reaches families around the world, thanks to volunteers and new technology. Each Christmas Eve, volunteers, including military members and their families, answer calls and emails from children who want to know where Santa is. A website lets families follow his route on a map, so a custom that began at one desk now fits in a pocket. NORAD says it follows Santa with the same kinds of tools it uses in its real work, such as radar and satellites.

Behind every glowing screen is still the simple choice Shoup made in 1955: answer a child kindly. Many people who get a wrong number apologize and hang up, so his response shows how one person's decision can turn an accident into a tradition. Ads, phones, maps and websites all played a part, yet none of them would matter without people willing to play along. That may be the most striking part of the story: about seventy years of Christmas Eve tracking began with one misprinted digit in a single newspaper ad.

On a December evening in 1955, a red telephone rang on Colonel Harry Shoup's desk, and the voice on the line was tiny. That phone was no toy: it was a private hotline, and only a few high-ranking officers were supposed to know its number. Instead of a general, the caller was a child who wanted to know whether Shoup was Santa Claus. As the story is usually told, the colonel, who directed operations at a command center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, suspected a prank at first, but the small voice on the line was completely serious. What he did next turned a printing error into a holiday tradition that children still count on today.

That printing error had been hiding in a newspaper advertisement. A department store, Sears Roebuck and Company, invited children to phone Santa at a special number printed in a Colorado Springs paper. The number was wrong, and it connected callers to the red phone at the Continental Air Defense Command, known as CONAD. This was a serious place, whose job was to watch the skies over North America in years when the United States and the Soviet Union were tense rivals. You could hardly find a less likely spot for a child to ask about reindeer, yet after the first call, more followed.

With the phone ringing again and again, Shoup had to choose between hanging up and playing along. He chose to play along, telling his staff to give each caller Santa's location. Accounts differ on the exact words of that first call, but they agree on the decision. The crew already had a huge map on which they followed aircraft, and according to the story, someone added a sleigh to show where Santa was. Word spread quickly, and local radio stations soon began phoning for updates too. Picture the contrast: people trained to spot danger in the sky were now pointing out a sleigh heading south from the North Pole.

Once radio stations were listening, a question arose: why did this habit last beyond that first December? People who retell the story tend to give two explanations, and they are worth comparing. One stresses character, since a busy officer chose kindness over embarrassment and his staff followed his lead. The other stresses tools, since a command that watched the skies around the clock already had the equipment that made "tracking" a sleigh feel natural. The evidence supports both, because the misprint only started the calls; it took a decision to answer them, and a system able to keep answering, to make a tradition. Around 1958, the Santa calls passed to NORAD, a joint command of the United States and Canada, and the tradition carried on under the new name.

Because the tradition outlived the command that began it, it now belongs to two countries. Each Christmas Eve, volunteers gather at NORAD in Colorado Springs, and NORAD says there are more than a thousand of them, to answer phone calls and emails from families around the world. Meanwhile, a website that first appeared in 1997 shows Santa's route as he travels. NORAD explains that it follows the journey with radar, satellites, and even special "Santa Cams," a cheerful cousin of its everyday equipment. That is a long way from a single red telephone on one colonel's desk.

That desk belonged to a man who came to be known as the "Santa Colonel." Harry Shoup died in 2009, but NORAD's account of the tradition still begins with him. Notice how the story is built: a small accident, a moment of choice, and then generations of people choosing the same thing again. That pattern is what makes it more than a funny mix-up. It is a striking thought that a phone connected to the gravest warnings now carries some of the happiest news of the year, all because a number was printed wrong in 1955.