An amusing story about
this annual Christmas tradition in the U.S., when something as sober and serious as the country's military tracker of aircraft (NORAD) got the Christmas spirit, and purportedly began using radar to track the
location and progress of Santa's sleigh and reindeer. The link below tells how it all got started, and right now, this evening (Christmas Eve), is of course the best time to tell this story.
In sum: in December 1955 a Sears ad in a newspaper invited kids to call Santa at a certain number. Problem was, the number given in the ad was incorrect, and in reality was the number for the desk phone of the Norad commander. After getting a bunch of calls from kids asking to talk with Santa, the commander then asked to talk with one of the children's mother, and pieced together what had happened. Then one thing led to another, and, as the article describes, a tradition was born.
A curious example of how something as simple as a misprinted telephone number actually led to a holiday tradition.
www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-norad-santa-tracker-history-20151224-story.html