The (Nuclear) Winter Origin of NORAD Tracks Santa

Growing up, there was nothing quite as exciting as watching the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Santa tracker on Christmas Eve. As the clock ticked on and Christmas got nearer, the present tracker rapidly increased, and Santa slowly but surely made his way across the globe towards the UK. Perhaps watching the NORAD tracker was an excuse to stay up late, some sort of justification for the frivolity of a child attempting to catch a glimpse of Santa coming down the chimney. Inevitably sleep comes before catching that glimpse — after all, in the words of Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters, “he knows when you’re awake”.

However, the origin of NORAD Tracks Santa is rooted within the Cold War. That’s right — the tracker which has brought children so much anticipation is inextricably linked with a time of heightened global tensions, when nuclear annihilation was seemingly just around the corner. Accounts of the tracker’s origin vary (history is frustratingly never straightforward), but the general backstory of the website all springs from a simple printing error.

In 1955, Sears, an American department store chain, allegedly misprinted a telephone number in a newspaper advert that it claimed would let you talk to Santa. Normally, a minor misprint in a telephone number would be of little consequence; either it would route to a dead number or else some poor family would be bombarded with hundreds of calls. However, the misprint (or inability of young children to accurately dial the right number) actually led to a call engine at the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), interfering with the role of US servicemen trying to account for any airborne threats from the Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, Colonel Shoup gave the order for all his men to respond and say to the hopeful children that Santa was currently at ever-changing positions around the globe. While this was a one-off accident that led to calls bombarding CONAD, the Americans (as is in their nature) capitalised upon it. Subsequent Christmases provided CONAD, soon to be incorporated under NORAD, a public outreach opportunity; by the Christmas of 1956, the press were expecting them to resume duties of tracking Santa. Before long, it became the annual tradition of NORAD to track Santa in various newspaper columns and via a public telephone number. The establishment of the NORAD Tracks Santa website in 1997 truly propelled the custom from a local to international level. In 2020, the website had a little under eight million visitors, remarkable for a website that is only active for a month. Even former First Lady Michelle Obama volunteered as part of the telephone responders from 2009 to 2016.

Of course, whatever holiday cheer that NORAD spreads, we can’t forget it and CONAD’s origins. Established following the Second World War to prevent any airborne attacks targeting the US, it is highly ironic that they adopted a festive public relations programme — it makes you wonder if any children phoning the agencies knew of their immense importance. Perhaps the task of tracking Santa was to distract children from otherwise questioning what such agencies did. The prospect of a nuclear holocaust does put a dampener on Christmas dinner. Perhaps, for a more optimistic view, the origin of NORAD Tracks Santa is a testament to how joy can sprout from even the darkest moments of human history. 

As the nights get longer and winter progresses, with temperatures plummeting to freezing conditions and international politics appearing ever so depressing, it may not be all that difficult to fall back into the same anxiety that was rife in the Cold War. But, even in these dark times, a festive distraction is as welcome as it was last century.

Illustration by Isabelle Holloway