Santa Claus is on his way! The bearded one left the North Pole some hours ago and is now making steady progress across the globe, delivering gifts, munching on mince pies, and knocking back a fair amount of sherry – though hopefully not too much, there’s still much work to be done.
Excited kids keen for updates on Santa’s progress can jump online to explore two great tracker sites, one from Google, the other from the North American Aerospace Defense Command, better known as NORAD.
Google’s tracker kicks off by detecting your location and letting you know how long it’s going to be before he squeezes down your chimney or steps through your front door using his magic key.
Both trackers – available on both desktop and mobile – show how many presents Santa’s delivered so far (at the time of writing, many millions), as well as a map of the world showing his precise whereabouts.
Google’s offering lets you click on various location markers telling you what time FC dropped by while giving additional information about the place. You can also see what time he and his reindeers visited, along with the current weather conditions. NORAD’s tracker runs along the same lines, pulling up Bing search results if you click on one of the map’s many camera icons.
Just like every year, both trackers offer plenty of other content, including games, videos, and opportunities to learn stuff.
This year Google’s Santa Tracker also gives kids the chance to try some super-basic coding, with 10 festive-themed challenges to complete. Kids who breeze through the tasks can find more advanced codling challenges on the Web giant’s Made with Code site.
But let’s be honest, learning how to code is the last thing on any kid’s mind just now. You’ll find Google’s Santa Tracker online here, and NORAD’s here.
Happy holidays!