Bikers Join NORAD To Track Santa

By Roadrage

Christmas is a magical time. Snow blankets everything. Twinkling lights are everywhere. The smell of gingerbread, peppermint and spiced wine fills the air. It is a time when much of the world pauses for a peaceful moment to reflect—except for kids.

Kids, of course, are all wound up and bouncing off walls for that month or so between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And, as the big day draws near, every fifth sentence is, “Santa is coming,” and leaves little doubt as to the importance of this annual event in their young lives. By the time Christmas Eve arrives, the excitement can be downright maddening for a kid.

The very magnitude of Santa’s journey is not lost on our country’s military.

Santa’s journey around the world has become such a huge event (was it ever small?) that the considerable resources of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) and the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have been focused on Santa’s magical holiday journey each Christmas Eve, and will again this year.

CONAD/NORAD’s involvement with Santa’s annual flight began on Christmas Eve 53 years ago with a misprinted phone number in a Sears Roebuck & Company advertisement. The ad invited children to call Santa on a special “hotline.” Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number advertised actually went to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline.”

No one caught the mistake until a single child called the number and went over the list of gifts he wanted for Christmas. At first, the Commander was not amused, but after talking to the mother of the second child who called, he instructed the CONAD staff to check their radar data for any indication of Santa making his way south from the North Pole and to give out updates. Indeed there were signs of Santa and children who called were given an update on Santa's location.

So, the tradition was born.

Today, the reports broadcast on television and radio stations across the country detailing Santa’s whereabouts on Christmas Eve originate at NORAD. Kids can still call for updates, or they can e-mail, and there’s a website with updates, too (http://noradsanta.org/, the site is up and running right now). But how does NORAD manage to dedicate the manpower to handle the flood of calls about Santa’s whereabouts?

That’s where the Santa Trackers Program comes in. NORAD inherited the tradition of tracking Santa from CONAD and has kept that tradition alive with the help of Canadian and American servicemen and women who work at NORAD and volunteer their time each year to answer phone calls from children (and their parents) personally. These phone calls come all over the world and the operations center runs all of Christmas Eve, (for 24 hours). These volunteers make up the Santa Trackers.

A few years ago, a new chapter in the tradition was written when a group of Colorado Springs bikers joined the ranks of the Santa Trackers.

Joe Maher, an Air Force Senior Master Sergeant--and Pikes Peak HOG Road Captain--assigned to NORAD, arranged for a small group of leather-and-chrome types to participate in the Santa Tracker program one Christmas Eve.

“It just seemed like a natural thing to do,” Maher explained. “I mean, look at all the stuff bikers do for kids—toy runs, benefits, all kinds of stuff. It seemed to me that there’d be a few bikers who’d enjoy being a part of this. I’ve done it in the past and had a great time, so I knew there had to be others who’d want to do it.”

So, Maher rounded up a small group of volunteers and brought them out to Santa Tracker Headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. The group joined a military operation with a very different mission--keeping track of Santa.

Their task: taking non-stop calls from anxious kids and giving them up-dates of where Santa was.

All Santa’s location information is coordinated so that the information the Santa Trackers are giving out is the same at any given time. This information isn’t just made up, it comes from the top, and all callers and e-mails are responded to with the most up-to-date confirmed information. This eliminates the chances of mix-ups and bad information getting out. In other words, if a brother and sister call at the same time on separate phones, they’ll get the very same update information from two different Trackers. The information is available on a constantly updated world map and is based on radar, satellite and aircraft sightings from around the world.

“I remember hearing these reports at Christmas when I was a kid,” said biker/tracker Ed Drozdz, who grew up in Canada. “It made Christmas all that much more exciting, to hear that Santa was actually on his way and we actually knew where he was. It’s a happy memory. So, I’m thrilled to be a part of this and be on the other side—handing out the Santa updates and helping make some Christmas memories for a bunch of kids.”

Before last Christmas, Pikes Peak HOG members Bill Fee and Pam Marx had never heard of the program, but after their shift on the phones, the pair agreed that the time they spent on the phones was one of the best ways they could think of to spend Christmas Eve.

“I think I was as excited as the kids making the calls,” said Fee. “It was pretty cool. I’m looking forward to doing it again this year. It’s great that they do this, and that Joe is able to bring a few of us in to experience it. It’s a gift to me.”

Typical questions asked are where is Santa, how big is his sleigh, what kinds of cookies does Santa like best, what could they leave for the reindeer to eat, and of course, when would Santa would be at their house? The answer for the last question is always that he would not stop there until they were in bed sleeping…something parents like to hear.

This is no slow-paced day, either. Literally, as soon as one call finishes, a new one will be waiting. There generally are so many calls, that not everyone who tries will get through. Despite that, Maher said there are always calls that are different, and will be remembered.

“Every call is special in some way,” Maher said. “The best one I remember was when I answered the phone very officially: ‘NORAD Santa Tracking Operations, Senior Master Sergeant Maher, how can I help you?’ and the line was quiet for a minute and then a man stammered and asked ‘Is this really NORAD?’ I said, ‘Yes sir, it is,’ and the line was just quiet again. He was surprised that he had actually called NORAD, and didn’t seem to know what to do next. So I helped him along a little by asking if he was looking for a Santa update. He said he was, and we got things going and I talked to the kids. Then the dad got on the line again and thanked me, and all of us, for doing this. He was a little shell shocked, I think. We made a Christmas memory for him, too. That’s why so many of us do this…moments like that.”

Despite not being able to answer every call made to the Santa Tracker Operations Center last year, Santa Trackers, including the group of bikers more at home on the open road than in a military call center, answered an impressive number of calls—94,742 of them in a 24-hour period. That’s 65 calls per minute, with each call lasting about two minutes.

During that same 24-hours, 10,326 e-mails were answered, and the Santa Tracker website, which featured a global map tracking Santa, had 10,660,838 unique visitors, and a total of 40,479,246 page views from 212 countries and territories.

That tells you just how absolutely ginormously important Santa’s travels are worldwide.

“Oh, we’re for sure doing it again this Christmas,” Maher said. “It’s a little addictive—like motorcycles. You feel good about what you’re doing, and want to do it again. It makes Christmas special for a lot of people, and that’s pretty cool. Being a Santa Tracker is a highlight of the holidays for us.”

NORAD relies on volunteers to help make Santa Tracking possible. Hundreds of volunteers spend part of their Christmas Eve at the Santa Tracking Operations Center answering phones and emails to provide Santa updates to thousands of inquiring children worldwide. Without them, no one would know where Santa was.

Imagine the panic that might ensue if the Santa Trackers weren’t on duty.

So, remember, Christmas is a magical time…when the world pauses for a peaceful moment to reflect—except for kids--and the Santa Trackers.

Merry Christmas.