Santa is now more than halfway across the globe, and we've been upholding our annual TechRadar tradition by following him along the way! We’re giving real-time updates on St. Nick’s movements live as he delivers all the best tech gifts this Christmas using the two most popular trackers; NORAD and Google.
Kris Kringle’s annual gift-giving globe-trot is practically a sporting event, with mllions watching online thanks to tools like the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Google Santa trackers. However, nowadays thanks to the internet and smartphones, there are plenty of options to follow along as he delivers gifts at breakneck speeds.
Of course, there's more to Christmas-time than watching an animated sleigh jet across the skies, so we're also sharing global festive traditions as he travels, offering holiday entertainment recommendations and even some hot last-minute tech bargains to keep you entertained.
In keeping with the continued 'AI everywhere' theme of 2024, we've also asked Firefly AI to create some images of the big man himself and the elves back at home as they prep for some serious gift-giving. They're only slightly cursed.
What is a Santa tracker?
Santa tracking is a well-loved tradition increasingly observed worldwide, but it all began with a happy accident in 1955. According to NORAD, a Sears catalog accidentally printed the Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center’s phone number instead of a Santa hotline and began to receive calls from children hopeful to speak to Klaus himself.
Seeing an opportunity for a little festive fun (and some positive PR), CONAD began publishing press releases on Santa’s whereabouts every year, handing the reins to NORAD after its formation in 1958. In 2004, Google released its own Santa Tracker, which offers a very different experience but is still just as fun.
Fast forward to today and there are a number of ways to find out what's happening to Santa, but these two are the key ones to look out for, in our expert opinion.
Which is the best Santa tracker - NORAD vs. Google
Norad Santa Tracker
The original way of following Santa and, some would say, the best, this website is actually run by the US military. It fuses gruff colonels presenting a video about Santa Claus with live, up-to-the-minute info on where the man in the big red suit is.
You can download the app on the App Store or Google Play Store, and from there you'll be presented with some mini-games to play as well as being able to follow the progress of the present-giving live.
It's quite basic compared to other trackers, lacking a lot of polish and website design. However, it's also the most popular and has a heartwarming history behind it – as well as an army of volunteers ready to take your call to find out where Santa is, and the power of Verizon's network in a now 22-year partnership.
NORAD has also added an AI chatbot called Radar to help you spot Santa too, but if you can be bothered, then dialling +1 (877) HI-NORAD will do the trick too.
Google Santa Tracker
A more recent addition to the Santa tracking mix, Google's Santa Tracker has been going since 2004, combining the power of Google Maps with the savvy knowledge of where Father Christmas is.
Every year, when we publish this guide, we have people wondering how to play the games on mobile as the big 'PLAY!' button in the middle of the screen sometimes fails and will only ever give you random games or video anyway. Well, just go to the Santa Tracker site on a mobile browser, click the three lines in the top left-hand corner and see all the games to play. (Note - the 'install' option, which tells you to 'Add to Home Screen', doesn't work on iPhones).
While Google doesn't have the same satellite tracking power as NORAD, one has to assume the search giant has struck a deal with the North Pole to figure out where he is in real-time using search and radar and lasers and... stuff. Don't ask us to interpret the magic.
Backing up the Santa Tracker are a whole host of minigames to play, as well as a month-long website encouraging children to learn to code while they encounter a winter wonderland.
There are some pro-Google tools moments in this Santa Tracker – the Quick Draw game is designed to teach Google's image-recognition software to improve, which feels a bit odd – but it's a wonderfully designed site and arguably the most visually accessible way to follow Santa.
You can download the app from the Google Play Store, but in our eyes the mobile site is just as good and more accessible for iPhone users, plus Google's Santa Tracker has the best and easiest-to-use desktop experience, too.
Live updates
Yes, it's the highlight of our year once again – time for TechRadar's annual Santa tracker!
The big man himself is readying all stations to set off on his annual world tour, but there's still plenty of time left to get yourself ready for his arrival. After all, it's not even Christmas Eve yet in many parts of the world.
We'll be live blogging Santa's journey over the next day and a half, bringing you the latest on his whereabouts and sharing plenty of info about Christmas traditions as we go. Trust us – it's the best possible way to prepare for the big day.
Right then, on with the show…
I should really introduce myself at this stage – very rude of me to not do so. So I'm Marc, and I'll be your guide for the next hour or so. Hi! 👋
There's still some time before Santa takes off, so if you haven't set up Santa's special thank-you gift yet, now's the perfect time. Here in the UK, we leave carrots for Santa's reindeer, and the man himself receives a mince pie and sometimes even some kind of alcoholic tipple like sherry or brandy (or Guinness, in some Irish households!).
And look, we have a photo of him enjoying just that kind of feast. Okay, it's not really a photo, obviously – it's an image we generated using Adobe Firefly. Looks pretty accurate though, right?
Down under in Australia, Santa gets a nice cold beer to help him beat the heat, whereas Danish families leave out a bowl of rice pudding with cinnamon called Risengrod for the elves. In the US, Santa gets milk and cookies, and Argentina sees the reindeer rejuvenated with hay and water.
So, let's take a little look at what the NORAD and Google Santa Tracker sites are saying about Santa's departure time.
On NORAD, St Nick is due to take off in 8hrs and 45mins, which would put it at 9am GMT / 4am ET / 1am PT / 8pm AEDT.
Google, meanwhile, has Santa taking flight an hour after that, at 10am GMT / 5am ET / 2am PT / 9pm AEDT.
Why the difference? Who knows – but the important thing is that he visits everyone at some point over the course of the night, right?
While we can't actually see Santa in flight yet – that'll happen in around 8-9 hours – we do have an idea of what he's currently up to, thanks to NORAD. They've got a candid behind-the-scenes shot of him preparing to take flight. I thought there'd be more gifts than that, to be honest.
So, what else is available on NORAD?
Well, quite a lot actually. There's the HQ, where you can learn about NORAD and its mission and history. There's the Library, where you can learn all about Santa, his sleigh and his reindeer. There's the Music Stage – where you can listen to his favorite songs – The Theater, where you can watch films about him, and a Gift Shop where you can buy Santa merch.
And of course there's The Arcade… where you can play Santa-themed games. Guess which one I'm trying first?
I'll dig into some of those games tomorrow, but it's well past midnight here in the UK, which means it's officially Christmas Eve – and also that I need to go to bed.
I'll back in a few hours, ready for lift off. See you then.
Good morning everyone! Marc here again for a couple more hours as we approach lift-off time.
I still need to do all of my wrapping sometime in the next 12 hours or so – let's hope Santa is better organized, given that he gets going in only 90 minutes, according to NORAD. Google, meanwhile, says he still has 2.5hrs until takeoff – so it's giving him a little lie-in, maybe.
Whether it's right about the takeoff time or not, Google's Santa Tracker site really is a wonderful thing, and I particularly love the little video that plays at the start. It's enough to get even the hardest-hearted Grinch into the festive spirit. But, if anyone from Google is reading this, I do have a slight issue with it – and it concerns penguins.
Look, we all know Santa lives at the North Pole. But we also know that penguins are southern-hemisphere creatures. They don't live in the North Pole. Then again, maybe Santa has flown them out there to help him prepare for Christmas – they do seem quite good at getting him ready for his flight, after all.
So, what can you expect to see once Santa takes off? Well, Google uses its Maps technology to plot the bearded one's progress, as well as providing a helpful tally of how many gifts he's delivered so far and some useful information about the local area.
NORAD, meanwhile, has the advantage of having actual satellite images of Santa on his sleigh, rather than just a cartoon. Our suggestion: follow both and get double the fun. (You'll find the links just above this post.)
While we're patiently waiting for Santa's reindeers to hoist him into the air, there are a ton of ways to pass the time on both the Google Santa Tracker and the NORAD Santa Tracker.
Head to the Google site and you can play a variety of games: from bouncing presents into their targets to taking down elves with snowballs. Just click the menu button in the top left to see the games gallery.
Over on the NORAD site we've got holiday songs, Santa facts, and games involving penguins, candy canes and plenty more – each house on the main page has something behind it.
In fact, there's enough here to keep you entertained all through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so it might be worth bookmarking these pages for later.
According to NORAD, Santa will be on his merry way in less than an hour.
I thought it might be fun to try out Radar, NORAD's chatbot, to see how it was getting on before Santa Claus takes off.
It's not the most advanced artificial intelligence right now – it's certainly no ChatGPT – but it didn't tell me something I didn't know before, which is that Santa's sleigh travels at the speed of starlight. As everyone knows, that's fast – really fast. Don't tire out those reindeer, Santa!
That gave me an idea, actually, so I asked Google's own AI, Gemini, the same question. It gave me a lot more information, stating that:
"Santa must travel at incredible speeds to deliver presents to all the children around the world in a single night! Here's how we can estimate his speed:
* Number of stops: There are approximately 700 million children who celebrate Christmas worldwide. If we assume an average of 3 children per household, Santa would need to visit roughly 233 million homes.
* Timeframe: Santa has about 31 hours to deliver presents, thanks to the world's different time zones and the Earth's rotation.
* Distance: The Earth's circumference is roughly 24,901 miles (40,075 km). However, Santa doesn't travel in a straight line; he has to visit houses scattered across the globe. Therefore, the actual distance he covers is much greater.
Calculations:
* Average speed: To visit 233 million homes in 31 hours, Santa would need to travel at an average speed of approximately 6 million miles per hour (10 million km/h). That's about 10,000 times the speed of sound!
Challenges:
* Acceleration: Santa would need to accelerate and decelerate incredibly quickly to stop at each house, which would involve enormous G-forces.
* Time spent at each house: This calculation doesn't account for the time Santa spends going down the chimney, placing presents, eating cookies, and refuelling his reindeer.
Possible Explanations:
* Magic: It's likely that Santa employs some form of magic or advanced technology to achieve these feats, which our current understanding of physics can't fully explain.
* Time dilation: Perhaps Santa travels at speeds close to the speed of light, causing time to slow down for him relative to the rest of the world.
Conclusion: While it's difficult to determine Santa's exact speed, it's clear that he travels at mind-boggling velocities to deliver presents to children worldwide."
So there you have it – Santa either travels at the speed of starlight, or uses magic in order to visit every child on Christmas eve!
However he travels, he'll be taking off very soon – NORAD says there is just 17 minutes to go now! Here's what Adobe Firefly AI thinks he might look like right now, as he plans his route.
There's now just 7 minutes until Santa takes off, according to NORAD. Exciting!
This just in: Santa is preparing for lift-off! Before he begins his epic gift-giving voyage around the world, Santa needs to do his final checks. Reindeer? Check. Reins? Check. Presents?
...
He forgot the presents. That's what last minute checks are for!
5...4...3...2...1... Santa Claus is GO!
Saint Nick has left the building, hauling a sleigh that probably weighs about as much as the Empire State Building... twice over. And no, friend – those aren't all for you.
He'll be heading to New Zealand, Papa New Guinea and Australia first, so if you're down under, it's time to get to bed!
And we have good news! The NORAD tracking site has confirmed: "Current conditions at the North Pole indicate good weather for flying."
That's what we like to hear.
The NORAD website seems to be struggling a little bit right now, which is exactly the same problem we had last year, and the year before. Maybe Santa needs to buy them some new computers for Christmas?
OK, NORAD is back up – sort of. It's showing an image of Santa preparing again. Maybe he won't actually take off for a little while?
Meanwhile the Google Santa Tracker already has its map live ahead of the big man's departure in about 50 minutes. It's currently showing a live feed of the preparations and shows his location as 'Santa's Village, North Pole' :)
Want to chat with Santa the easy way?
Who needs to dial a number when you can use Google Assistant to ring up the man in red himself? Just grab your Android phone, Google-enabled smart speaker or Google app on iPhone to ask 'What's new at the North Pole' and hear the latest news updates from Santa's world.
I've just tried it on my Nest smart display and can confirm that it's great fun.
While I wait for Santa to take off I like to amuse myself by playing some of Google's excellent games. My favorite is Quick Draw – although I'm not very good at it.
How does it work? Well the robot asks you to draw something, then tries to guess what it is. It's like Pictionary, but with a robot rather than your family all shouting at you. The effect is much the same though, with it getting repeatedly annoyed at me and saying "I don't know what that is!"
NORAD has games too, in its Arcade section. They are… how do I say this kindly… not quite as impressive as Google's.
I just tried the 3D Santa Run game, and it's fairly terrifying – but why don't you give it a go and see if you can beat my terrible high score of 600.
My favorite of the NORAD games is the charmingly named Santa Games (which is confusing, as they are pretty much all Santa games, not just this one).
Anyway, Santa Games is a Mario-style platformer in which you control the bearded one, avoiding goblin-type creatures (I didn't know goblins were an occupational hazard for Santa), collecting presents (good), the letters of the word Santa (good) and diamonds (confusing – why does Santa want diamonds?)
This one is actually pretty fun.
There's about 20 minutes to go until Santa takes off, according to Google. NORAD's countdown has already reached zero, but it still says he's preparing, so I think both sites agree that he'll be leaving at about 10am GMT / 5am ET / 2am PT / 9pm AEDT.
Here's hoping he doesn't have a last-minute flat tire on that sleigh…
We've just got off the phone with Santa, and he's surprisingly calm for someone who's about to undertake the single greatest gift-giving mission known to man; unless of course, you count that time Apple gifted everyone Songs of Innocence by U2. What a weird day that was.
Anyway, Santa mentioned something pretty neat if you're into Christmas trivia. Nearly 100 years ago in 1927, Santa got his official pilot's license from the US government. Both he and Mrs. Claus were even granted Canadian passports back in 2013, too, courtesy of Canadian Immigration Minister Chris Alexander.
Folks we're about t-minus 5 minutes from the big take-off – over on the Google Santa Tracker the map view is showing the man of the moment preparing to leave the North Pole.
Meanwhile the NORAD Santa Tracker is still showing a picture of Father Christmas packing up presents. He's cutting it mighty fine here, but we assume after all these years he knows what he's doing.
And he's off (at least on the Google tracker)! We can confirm that Santa is now heading over the Arctic Ocean and has already delivered nearly 900 presents. St Nicholas is good at this, right?
It's now Christmas Day somewhere... did you know the earliest time zone on planet Earth is UTC+14:00? And it didn't even officially exist until 1994. The islands of Kiribati have now ticked over to Christmas Day, though with a population of under 120,000 Santa doesn't have too many presents to deliver.
As yet NORAD hasn't updated its 2D or 3D maps – but we're watching closely for the next update.
Santa's next stop, according to Google, will be Provideniya in Russia. The pictures it has of the region show a very pretty if slightly isolated little town.
NORAD still has Santa preparing, although it does have a new message that "NORAD radars and satellites are ready to track Santa!"
With Santa already hard at work we're still waiting for the NORAD Santa Tracker to get a lock on his location – but we expect the big man has his most excitable elf currently working on the issue, and for now, you can stick with using the Google Santa Tracker.
Managing these trackers isn't easy, considering how fast Santa is flying around the world in order to deliver every present on time. We're hoping the reindeer get Christmas Day off.
Gifts delivered count: 11,000 and rising fast.
NORAD still hasn't updated, but Google now has Santa over the sea east of Russia and says he's now delivered 45,000-plus gifts in 10 minutes. That's probably more than even Amazon can manage!
Santa is about to reach Anadyr, in Russia. According to Wikipedia (no, I did not know this myself beforehand), Anadyr is the easternmost town in Russia. And very pretty it looks too.
If you're in the US, you can actually call NORAD today up until midnight to find out where Santa is: the number you need is 1 877 HI-NORAD (1 877 446-6723).
NORAD says that more than 1,250 uniformed personnel and civilian volunteers give up their time to answer calls and to make sure you always know where Santa is. Our AI-generated image above gives you a great idea of what that must look like.
However, they'll also give you an important warning: Santa isn't going to deliver his presents until you're asleep!
Santa has now just arrived in the Marshall Islands after his trip around eastern Russia. Current delivered present count: 2,716,121! He'll be around the Pacific nations for a while now, before then heading for New Zealand and Australia.
NORAD has now changed its message to say that "Are you ready? Santa will takeoff within the hour!"
I'm really not sure why the two trackers can't agree on when he gets going – it makes me think that magic and some element of time travel is definitely involved in his journey. Anyway, I'll update this blog once he's underway there, but will continue to use Google for most posts (he's currently headed towards Kiribati).
Santa is now on his way to Apia, in Samoa, which looks absolutely gorgeous. The local time there is 20 minutes to midnight, so hopefully the children are all tucked up in bed dreaming of his arrival. Current presents delivered count: 4.8 million!
Santa has arrived in New Zealand! He's likely had to take his jacket off while putting out presents, as it's 17°C / 62°F right now in Auckland – which is a lot warmer than it is in the UK, particularly at nearly midnight.
Christmas trivia: Kiwis have their own special Christmas tree called the Pōhutukawa, which has bright red flowers that are popular decorations and also feature on Christmas cards. It's been associated with Christmas since the mid 1800s, though many people do also erect the globally recognized pine-style tree in their homes.
Present count update: Santa has given out more than 17 million presents so far, and he's just getting started.
John-Anthony here, taking over for the next couple of hours.
We're still waiting for NORAD's tracking to kick off, but while we do it's worth noting that Santa has already delivered over 25 million presents according to Google. I wish the two trackers would agree, but hey ho!
Oops, I wrote that last post at the wrong time! BIG UPDATE! NORAD's tracking is now up and running! There he is in all his glory…
Did you know Rudolf was almost called Reginald?
Yep, you read that right - Rudolf and his fellow reindeer almost had completely different names, and the red-nosed wonder himself was almost called Reginald or Rollo. Other names under consideration included Racer and Pacer, Flossie and Clossie and Ready and Steady - quite the departure from our beloved Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.
This is perhaps something you shouldn't mention to the kids if you're in the US, UK, or Australia – but in a lot of countries, presents are actually opened on Christmas Eve. It's the tradition in many parts of Europe and South America, and it's something the British Royal Family does too.
Now that both the NORAD and Google trackers are up and running, we can see that they're not quite in full agreement about where Santa is right now: he's either heading for Esso in Russia or Queenstown in New Zealand.
If anyone can be in two places at once, it has to be Santa Claus.
NORAD reckons Santa is a lot more generous than Google: at the time of writing NORAD puts the number of presents given out at more than 210 million, and the big guy with the beard is just getting started. Google puts the figure at a more modest 36 million right now, but perhaps Google has more information about who's been naughty or nice this year.
Of course, thanks to the wonders of the internet, last-minute Christmas gifts aren't a problem anymore. You can email a loved one a gift voucher or a subscription to a streaming service at a moment's notice, although these aren't really the kind of presents you can wrap up and put under the tree.
Google says Santa and his reindeer are now on their way to Yaren in the small country of Nauru.
We don't know too much about the place, but we do know Google uses its Santa Tracker to learn more about its systems and tools. The tech giant gets its staff in the festive mood by letting developers experiment with computer and mobile interactions through the Santa Tracker – but apparently, it doesn't always go to plan.
In a blog post, Dave Holmes who works in developer relations at Google said: "One engineer who focused on AI and human movement came up with this idea for a game where you could enable tracking on your computer and teach the elves to dance, and they would mimic your movement."
But just before launch, they found a glitch. "If the tracker lost you for a second... the elves' heads and arms would go flying off!"
Did you know that the most successful Christmas movie at the box office is The Grinch – not the Jim Carrey one, the animated movie from 2018, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Angela Lansbury? It beat Home Alone, which held the record previously.
However, if you adjust for inflation, Home Alone takes the prize comfortably.
Speaking of Christmas movies, my favorite has to be Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The sequel to the aforementioned Home Alone is an absolute classic set in, you guessed it, the world's most famous city.
Funnily enough, Kevin McCallister is neither home nor alone in the sequel, but it's an absolute all-timer so we can overlook the technicalities.
According to Google, Santa is now on his way to Japan, a country where the holiday season works a bit differently. In Japan, New Year's Day is the main day to celebrate with family, and Christmas Eve is Japan's version of Valentine’s day – so it's very much the season of sentimentality.
Japan's Christmas culture is fairly unique, too. Believe it or not, the meal of choice on Christmas in Japan is KFC, with an estimated 3.5 million Japanese families flocking to the fast food chain for their Christmas chicken fix. There are also some typical traditions like Christmas cakes, lights, and markets with a culturally relevant Japanese spin on them.
If you're stuck for dessert tomorrow, we've got you covered. We've tried this last-minute air fryer Christmas cake recipe and were mega impressed by the results. It uses many of the festive ingredients you'd find in the pantry around Christmas time, and as long as you've got one of the best air fryers, it should be a breeze to make.
Did you know that Santa's sleigh has to travel 650 miles per second (that's 3,000 times the speed of sound!) in order to deliver all those presents on time? That makes it the fastest vehicle on the planet.
Speaking of Santa, Google shows he's just landed in Papa New Guinea and has delivered nearly 50 million presents, while NORAD says Ol' Saint Nick is in Russia and has delivered 635 million. Which tracker is more accurate? Who knows, I hope it's NORAD's more liberal approach to gift-giving.
Bonza, Santa's arrived in Australia according to Google! In the December warmth of the southern hemisphere, the only white Christmas you'll find is the froth of waves over the beach. Naturally, Christmas traditions follow from this: Santa often stops for a surf in some board shorts, and Christmas dinner is often a cold meal, or a seafood barbecue including – yes, you guessed it – shrimp and prawns.
Cricket is also a big tradition, especially on Boxing Day (the holiday on the day after Christmas day, which the country shares with the UK, unsurprisingly given their history).
We hope Santa is delivering something wonderful for our colleagues in TechRadar Australia – Happy Christmas, Sharm, Jasmine, Petra, and Max!
Josephine Chief Elf of the TREE (TechRadar Elving Enthusiast) committee here, logging in and ready for some festive fun! I'll be your Santa guide for the next few hours.
Santa continues his trek across Australia, meanwhile I just got a lovely email through from a very special elf called Alan, who runs the emailsanta.com family of websites with a quick update of this year’s festivities. Hi Alan, and thanks for once again spreading some Christmas cheer!
As well as pointing me in the direction of his new AI-powered tools you can play with on the site, Alan says so many kids logged on to use his SantaChatter.com tool that it was briefly knocked offline! Thankfully, a Christmas miracle prevailed and you can now return to gossiping with the man in red as he jets across the globe.
He’s given me some very salient advice on my wish this Christmas here, but I’m still holding out hope for the four-legged gift of my dreams. Though I’ll be quite content with the Sony WH-1000XM5 I’ve asked for.
There’s plenty of fun to be had on Elf Alan’s websites - make sure to check them out!
According to Google, Santa's now wrapping up (har har) his jaunt in Australia, while NORAD has him just arriving.
Now, this is potentially easily explained; naturally, Santa's gear is pretty high-spec. My theory is he's also loaded up his sleigh with a flux capacitor to maximize efficiency, and that both trackers are actually different time-traveling Santas.
According to the NORAD website, Santa can move faster than starlight using just basic 9 Reindeer Power. With just 31 hours to deliver presents to approximately 1.93bn children around the world, that would mean he has to visit roughly 8,500 houses per second (considering the average number of children per household is roughly two!). Of course, that's made a whole lot easier by the magic of Christmas and all the great tech upgrades Santa has made over the years.
I wonder if he'll grab an Apple Vision Pro and do the whole shebang remotely one year?
Santa has landed in Korea!
Like Japan, South Korea celebrates Christmas as a holiday of romance, which couples will spend together, more akin to Valentine's Day than what we think of as Christmas in the UK or US. And it's an official public holiday, so they really get to enjoy their day.
The Christmas delicacy of choice is sponge cake covered in whipped cream and strawberries – the fruit of love!
Want something to watch this Christmas but tired of the same old Hallmark Holiday movies? Check out the latest, festive episode of the TechRadar Podcast where we debate which of the biggest tech stories this year were Naughty or Nice, trade tech Christmas wishlists, and indulge in a rousing game of "What's in the Box?"
Santa’s now dishing out gifts in China, according to NORAD, where he’s better known as Dun Che Lao Ren (dwyn-chuh-lau-oh-run). He's not stopping here just yet according to Google, but eagle-eyed little ones might spot him from their window as they soar past.
As Christianity spread in China, so too did Christmas celebrations, which carry over a lot of classic traditions but with a more culturally relevant twist. Those who celebrate the festive season will light their homes with paper lanterns, adorning their Christmas trees with paper decorations.
After a brief trip back to Russia (it is rather large, after all), now Gogle says Santa is making his way to Mongolia.
Christmas isn't widely celebrated here, but there are small communities that do. Interestingly, though, Mongolia does widely have the tradition of a "New Year's Tree" which is a triangular, pine-style tree decorated with lights and baubles. Yes, it's basically what people who observe Christmas would recognize as a Christmas tree, but made to honor and enjoy a different holiday. So while things are different in Mongolia, they're quite familiar, too.
Having visited Eastern China, NORAD has Santa on his way to the Phillippines. Christmas is huge there, where it's known as Pasko, with excitement and celebrations starting in early September, running through to December 25th.
Celebrations include a lot of Western Christmas traditions – including waiting for Santa, singing carols and sending cards – but there are also some traditions unique to the Filipinos, such as the 'parol', which is a star made from bamboo strips with colored paper over its panels, making for a stained-glass effect, to commemorate the star that the wise men followed.
People will often stay up all night on Christmas Eve to see in the big day!
Santa's got a lot of China and Russia to cover before he continues the world tour, so why not stick on the TV?
If festive cheer isn't quite your vibe, then why not opt for your very own Nightmare Before Christmas? No, not the Tim Burton movie - try the best new Horror movies on Prime Video, Shudder, Hulu and more.
If you didn’t believe in magic before, you will now - Santa’s sleigh carries over 60,000 tons of presents at takeoff, according to NORAD. If you’re having trouble visualizing that, it’s about twice as heavy as the Statue of Liberty or five-and-a-half times as heavy as the Eiffel tower. So really, really heavy.
The NORAD Santa Tracker has the big guy over Australia right now, so if you're reading down under shut your eyes and pretend to be asleep!
As Santa leaves Australia, NORAD says he is currently passing over Christmas Island! You'd think the jolly elf would want to hang out on an island named for his favorite holiday, but he's going to pass over quickly so he doesn't disturb the red crabs. Around this time of year (or a bit earlier), the island is flooded with tiny red crabs migrating from one side of the island to the other. If you have never seen a video of the red crab phenomena, you need to stop what you're doing now and go take a look, it's really incredible.
If you've asked Santa for a new games console this Christmas, the after-Christmas sales will be an excellent opportunity to kit it out with some of the best accessories as recommended by TechRadar gaming:
Santa has been hopping around various countries in the last half an hour, covering Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia on both Google and NORAD's trackers, meaning they're finally pretty much in sync again... for now.
We almost forgot to share our fun facts about Hong Kong, which Santa visited a little earlier and is another place that loves to go big for Christmas. You can't expect a white Christmas there, but the fluffy white silvergrass fields you can find in the countryside certainly feels close!
The city itself will include elaborate decorations and huge festive markets, so you'll definitely feel the Christmassy vibe all over. In West Kowloon, there's a whole Christmas Town you can visit, which is up from November to January, and includes a gigantic tree, vibrant decorations, and the chance to visit Santa (even before he made this stop).
Seeing as Santa's got a fair bit of Russia to cover, let's talk about what Christmas looks like there.
In Russia, Santa is known as Ded Moroz, or Father Frost. He travels with Snegurochka – a snow maiden who is said to be his granddaughter. Your Santa might be round and jolly but in Russia he's tall and thin, and instead of traveling by sleigh, he makes his way around the country using a 'troika' pulled by horses.
Father Frost is actually a little early to be giving out his gifts here – Russians have a New Year tree rather than a Christmas tree, so the children there will be looking for their presents on 1 January.
Winter Festivals take place across Russia, but the biggest one is in Moscow and runs from them middle of December to the middle of January. There you can marvel at spectacular ice sculptures, ride a 'troika' (which is what Santa uses to get around, there!) and eat bagels and jam.
According to NORAD, Santa's now heading for India.
While Christmas isn’t quite as unilaterally celebrated in India, the festivities are still observed with fervor nonetheless - and different regions have different traditions. For example, Kerala sees a big focus on the nativity, with the community banding together to create the best possible scene and add flair to the crib. Branches from mango trees serve as Christmas trees, adorned with baubles and homemade decorations.
On the other hand, in Goa, celebrations start far earlier in the month with various markets, carnivals, and parades, and Burma sees the season commence with decorating in the second week of December and Carollers distributing money collected during their chorus to the poor and needy.
Let's check in with the elves to see how things are going back at the North Pole...
Ah, it seems they're getting around to opening their own gifts, including this rather high-tech, festive-looking drone. I wonder if the North Pole has drone regulations, too?
A few other choices
If you're not a fan of Norad or Google, then you've got the choice of a few others. They're not as fully-featured or comprehensive with the mini-games, but they are still charming in their own right.
Santa Update - this is a close third place option to Google and NORAD, taking data from North Pole Flight Command. There are a few little games to play and activities make it a fun event. I'm a big fan of the Naughty List confessional, to get you off the list.
North Pole Flight Command - an alternative map of Santa activities, you can also get texts from where he is around the globe if you subscribe.
Santa Tracker App - a fairly rudimentary app that mimics Google in a lot of ways - is free to start with interstitial ads. Doesn't seem perfect in terms of tracking around the world at the moment, and rather glitchy in places - but has a few fun features.
Email Santa - a site that's been running since 1999, it's got a very 'homemade' feel around it - as in, it's a site that takes cues from the early part of the century in terms of web design. It's got some charming features - the headline being the chance to enter some information into fields and get your own personalized letter from Santa in minutes - as well as a new AI chat feature, although that's still a little bug-filled.
Santa's making serious tracks, and has now reached India on Google's tracker, while NORAD has him filling in some gaps in the Middle East.
Some of the elves up in the North Pole, on the other hand, are finally finished with their shift for today and are celebrating in style.
It's 5PM somewhere, I guess.
It's also now Christmas Day in several somewheres... but did you know the earliest time zone on planet Earth is UTC+14:00? And it didn't even officially exist until 1994.
Otherwise, the islands of Kiribati have ticked over to Christmas Day - in fact, it's nearly 6AM there, meaning it's around about time for the squealing toddlers to begin harassing parents out of their slumber. With a population of under 120,000, Santa didn't have too many presents to deliver here.
Time for more fun facts! Let's talk tinsel - no, not the affordable plastic kind we're all used to, but the original tinsel.
Invented way way back in 1610 in Germany, tinsel used to be spun from genuine silver, hammered into small fragments and adorned around the home as a very premium decoration.
It's had a pretty storied history since, too. While it's not so fashionable these days, it was once banned in the US, as it contained lead - yikes! Not quite the Christmas gift people were expecting.
Santa's finally almost done with the Middle East and Asia, meaning it's almost time for Europe and Africa!
While we wait, let's head to ChatGPT for a fun little quiz. I've asked the chatbot to give me some trivia questions:
1: In what year was "Silent Night" first performed?
2: Which country started the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree?
3: In the classic Christmas song "The Twelve Days of Christmas," how many gifts in total are given by the end of the song?
4: What is the name of the holiday celebrated in Latin American countries, beginning on December 16th and ending on December 24th, that commemorates the journey of Mary and Joseph?
5: Which British monarch delivered the first Christmas Day message to the nation over the radio in 1932?
Stick around for the answers!
Whether you're tracking Santa on NORAD, Google, or another preferred track, it's clear he's making excellent progress in covering the globe. Santa is finishing off delivering gifts in the Middle East and Asia before heading to Africa and Europe and then, eventually, the rest of the world.
Below, we shared a ChatGPT-generated Christmas-themed trivia, and now it's time for the answers to be revealed. Let us know how many you got correct!
1: In what year was "Silent Night" first performed?
Answer: 1818
2: Which country started the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree?
Answer: Germany
3: In the classic Christmas song "The Twelve Days of Christmas," how many gifts in total are given by the end of the song?
Answer: 364
4: What is the name of the holiday celebrated in Latin American countries, beginning on December 16th and ending on December 24th, that commemorates the journey of Mary and Joseph?
Answer: Las Posadas
5: Which British monarch delivered the first Christmas Day message to the nation over the radio in 1932?
Answer: King George V
