NORAD Tracking Santa’s Route Christmas Eve – Stone-Cold Sober

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been on a mission since 4 a.m. Christmas Eve, tracking Santa and updating children around the world on his delivery route, just as NORAD has done since 1955.

But this year’s mission may not be quite as festive as those of previous years. While Santa will certainly have a bag filled with presents, his trackers won’t be in the bag.

That’s because last holiday season, the Pentagon shut down the “John Wayne Saloon,” an invitation-only tavern operating inside NORAD – until USA Today exposed the unofficial watering hole in November 2023.

For close to seventy years, NORAD, which is based at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, has been charged with standing watch 24/7 to defend the United States and Canada from attack. That charge does not mix with day drinking.

According to USA Today, the saloon was behind a locked door covered with a poster of John Wayne, which led to an office with a half-dozen desks holding computers with access to classified information, as well as a refrigerator stocked with beer and bottles of hard liquor. The Pentagon forbids alcohol in offices without special permission; Air Force General Glen VanHerck shuttered the bar after a reporter started asking questions, and also ordered an investigation.

Earlier this year, the Air Force released the results of that probe, which found “a lack of awareness of existing policies regarding alcohol consumption” and ordered staff education.

While little more is known about that investigation, the story of how NORAD became Santa Central is no secret: Back in 1955, a Sears holiday ad in the Colorado Springs Gazette included a number where children could call Santa; despite the warning for kiddies to “dial the correct number,” one mistakenly dialed the desk of Colonel Harry Shoup, who was manning a desk at what was then called the Continental Air Defense Command. He gave the caller his best guess, and by the next year, offering info on Santa’s whereabouts had become a regular service at CONAD, which changed to NORAD in 1958.

By 1997, the Santa Tracker had gone digital, with close to a thousand volunteers helping to handle calls every year. Celebrities often signed on for Christmas Eve duty – John Wayne never among them.

While Colorado’s space industry is hoping that Santa guarantees that another Peterson facility, Space Command, isn’t moved to Alabama in a Grinch-like move by President-elect Donald Trump, the important work at NORAD continues.

This year, the Santa Tracker is available in nine languages – English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Korean – and the website has games and maps, besides the map that starts tracking Santa’s journey around the globe on Christmas Eve. (He’s currently above Japan.)

Volunteers are again handling the phone lines, too. All stone-cold sober.

For more information, call 877-HI-NORAD.

This story has been updated from the original published on December 23, 2023.