Published 13:03 IST, December 24th 2020
Christmas 2020: How to track Father Christmas using Google and NORAD's Santa tracker?
As Santa Claus is seen taking off on Christmas Eve on his sleigh, Google allows waiting kids to play several Christmas-themes fun games in Santa’s village.
On the eve of Christmas, Google’s Santa Tracker, a service which has been tracking Santa’s journey from the North Pole since 2004, launched a hub of new games and activities for the kids worldwide, as they wait for Father Christmas to deliver their presents. While google’s tracker, similar to NORAD, depicts Santa's current location, his next stop, the number of gifts he delivered, and status updates from Santa as he travels across different time zones with his reindeers, penguins, and elves, Google’s main area, Santa’s village allows the users to play several games related to the holiday tradition. As Santa Claus is seen taking off on Christmas Eve on his sleigh to cover approximately 510,000,000 km route from his village, and the time tracker tik-toks on the main screen, kids can occupy themselves with fun games.
How to track Santa via NORAD?
The US-North American Aerospace Defense Command that oversees the aerospace against the nuclear threats has designed the NORAD tracking systems for the kids worldwide to track Santa Claus and his reindeer on the website as he starts his journey, delivering presents from the North Pole. One can click on the NORAD Tracks Santa website or download the app available for iOS and Android devices to track Santa's sleigh. Children can also call Santa to track his location. The northern command officers have set up a special call center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado to answer kids on 1-877-Hi-NORAD giving Santa's whereabouts.
"NORAD is committed to tracking Santa while keeping our military, their families, and our dedicated call center volunteers safe," NORAD said in a release, as it tracks the old elf in the skies.
How to play games on Google tracker while Santa is on his way?
As Santa Claus prepares for Christmas Eve getting out of his bed and dumping gifts in his sleigh to reach out to children in a count down for Christmas, kids can either got to the main menu bar on the top left or pause the video on Santa Village homepage to select from the annual Christmas-themed fun activities and games.
When paused, Google lists games such as Snowball Storm, wherein the player needs to gather as many gifts as they can amid the blazing snowballs or play songs in an Elf Jam Band. Another game that pops up is the Santa Selfie activity, which lets the player shave Santa's beard and blow dry it or change the colour to yellow or pink. The game involves readying Santa for the big day. As one pauses Santa's journey on the main screen, Google will list entertaining Christmas themed game options.
What games you can play?
Kids can also play games with elves in jetpacks, procure some rolling gumballs in the snowy terrain, and ride sleighs powered by rockets, and many more. Some other games that one can play by making a selection from the menu bar are puzzles to create artwork, design their own elves in Elf maker game, drop a gift from the sky in Present Drop, and save a reindeer riding elf from the threats in Reindeer Runner game which is similar to Temple Run.
In the image recognition game with Tensor, Santa’s Machine Learning robot recognizes a picture of a holiday word drawn on-screen. Tensor gets smarter with each picture. Google Santa Tracker lists many such games at random one after the other to keep the waiting children occupied as Father Christmas is on his journey to make the first stop at the Republic of Kiribati, central Pacific Ocean.
Updated 13:01 IST, December 24th 2020