Want to know where Santa is right now?  Just use the official the official NORAD Santa Tracker, powered by Google Earth!  Right now Santa is over Russia, and he seems to be making good time.

The tradition of NORAD tracking Santa Claus’s flight over the Earth dates back to 1955, according to this BBC article.  Due to a misprint in a Colorado advertisement, people phoning a Santa hotline were actually calling the Continental Air Defense Command, the predecessor to NORAD.  An official at CONAD took the calls and pretended to be Santa Claus, and the tradition took off from there!

Tracking Santa is high tech.  You can ask questions of NORAD volunteers by emailing noradtrackssanta@gmail.com, check the Santa tracking Facebook page, browse the Picasa photo album, install a browser plugin to keep tabs on St. Nick, subscrube to the official NORAD Santa Twitter feed to track of his progress and give interesting facts about the stops along the way, and even get SMS updates of Santa’s progress sent to your cell phone!