By Trevor Hughes

More than 1,000 volunteers have helped track Santa's Christmas Eve flight around the world and relayed his status to kids excited for a visit from St. Nick.

Top U.S. military agency NORAD stages the tracking effort annually on behalf of kids across the Earth, taking calls from children who want to know if they're on the Naughty or Nice list (only Santa knows that), whether he got their last-minute present request (he gets regular updates) and whether the weather will stop him from coming. 

Phones ring constantly in the command center as volunteers remind kids to be thankful, stay asleep no matter what they hear and do their best to stay on the Nice list all year.

Glasgow Times:

"It’s everything I thought it would be," said grinning first-time volunteer Maj. Brian Tuzzolino of the U.S. Air Force. "I’m 42, but I feel like I’m 12."

The Santa tracking tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears, Roebuck & Co. advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call Santa. Instead of Santa, children reached the commander in chief's hotline at CONAD, the U.S. Continental Air Defense Command.

Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations back then, instructed his staff to check the radar for signs of Santa traveling south from the North Pole and give the children updates. The practice continued and was taken over in 1958 by NORAD, the binational air defense command for North America, run by the governments of Canada and the United States.

The website is available in eight languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese. On-site volunteers were averaging 4,000 calls every half-hour Saturday. NORAD operates the Santa tracker with help from corporate partners, including Microsoft and Verizon. Google also offers a Santa tracker.

The NORAD Tracks Santa line is a lighthearted way to showcase the capabilities of the men and women -- and technology -- that protect North America every moment, including during the holidays. 

Beyond its Santa tracking duties, NORAD monitors the skies above North America for attacks and UFOs. It uses a combination of land- and sea-based radar, infrared-sensitive satellites and aircraft to monitor the skies.

“It’s a way we can showcase to the world the capabilities we have at NORAD,” said Lt. Gen. Reynold Hoover, the deputy commander of NORTHCOM, who is also vice commander at NORAD.