Seven things I learned from the Norad Santa Tracker

My wife thought I was a little bit cracked, but she humored me. This Christmas Eve I kept a close and fascinated eye on the Norad Santa tracker.

If you've not heard of it, let me catch you up. In 1955, one company decided to advertise in the newspaper that kids could call in and talk to Santa Claus 24/7. The number they published was off by one digit. It actually (and I am completely not making this up)--it was actually a very restricted number for a senior officer at the command center for the North American Aerospace Defense Command or NORAD (this is where they launch the nuclear missiles, kids!). The commander who answered the phone from the first kid asking to talk to Santa Claus wasn't very pleased. Apparently he made the kid cry.

Eventually he decided to play along, and a Christmas tradition was born. Every year, some people at Norad would do what Norad would do best in such a situation (beside shooting Santa out of the sky should he forget to receive permission to enter U.S. airspace before delivering the presents) which was to tell the kids where Santa had last been spotted and where he was off to next, making good use of their sophisticated tracking equipment. A few years ago, Santa got on the internet, and now you can watch him as he makes his trek across the world, zigzagging up and down, gradually making his way east to west. There is a map of the world below, with major cities and geographic points of interest marked, and you can see Santa's sleigh, naturally led by Rudolph and the elite eight, soaring high above an image of our planet brought to you by quite a number of mapping services, all working together in the spirit of the season (and good publicity). If you play with the buttons you can see him from different angles as well. It's quite a production.

I made a few comments on Facebook about the enterprise, one of which was that the Norad Santa Tracker was another way for Americans to learn geography. Some smart fellow once snarkily suggested that war was the method by which Americans learned about their world, but here, I thought, was another. Which is my first point.

1) If, like most of us, you don't spend much time thinking about the world at large, this is a chance to do it. While you are waiting for Santa to get to your little neck of the woods, you have time to notice just what all else is out there. There is a great deal of ocean, for one, and a whole lot of desert, and mountains, and places with no vegetation. There is a lot of inhospitable terrain, basically. A whole lot of it. And if you've forgotten where half the places on the news are, this is a way to remember. The Santa Tracker could be an excellent crash course in where all of those cities are that you only hear about when there is an epic disaster.

2) As I mentioned, it isn't just the places inhabited by humans that are noticeable. As Santa makes each delivery, two places are on the screen: where Santa was last seen and where he is going next (as well as his ETA to get there). As I wrote on Facebook,  "I didn't realize he delivered presents to the Amazon Rain Forest. Some tree frog must have been really good this year." If you're like me, you have no idea about Santa's methodology, nor how he could possibly cover all that terrain on 24 hours. Now you have no excuse not to know.

3) In many ways, Santa is just as ignorant as the rest of us. Most of us come out of the womb assuming that all life and all experience matches our own, and don't have much tolerance for people with other traditions and ideas. Apparently Santa is also blissfully unaware of the diversity of the earth's peoples. As he traversed the globe on the evening of the 24th of December, I watched him deliver presents to a number of places where I was sure the populace wouldn't want them: even though there is a Christian minority in many of these places I doubt they would appreciate the attention, nor would they even welcome such an display of gifts. And the Christian world itself is divided on the matter of timing. For the Eastern Orthodox world, Santa is a few weeks early, since Christmas comes to them on January 7th. In parts of Europe, Santa is three weeks late, St. Nicholas Day having passed on December 6th, when presents are given. I could see Santa wanting to get it all over with on one day, but given that it is such a gargantuan task, I wondered if he would really mind parceling it out (sorry). And it would be better customer relations than forcing one practice on everyone.

4) Santa is one lucky b----d. I noticed that Santa flew over a number of war zones; how can one with his mission avoid it? I grew white knuckled for him each time. I spent quite a lot of Christmas Eve working, and missed seeing Santa fly over the Ukraine, or Afghanistan. I did catch him delivering presents to the South Sudan. I remember him flying over Saudi Arabia, as well. I am a little surprised he was not taken out by a surface to air missile in any of the earth's "conflict" regions. If he has a way to defend against these, it is unknown to me. Not to mention he had to land in each one of these places a number of times, though the Santa tracker did not show us these (probably for security reasons).

5) Santa skipped Baltimore. I lived there for a decade and grew to appreciate our civic inferiority complex. I also noted how often we were ignored by people from the rest of the nation. My own friends and family kept asking how Boston was. Even the media at large routinely forgot about us. I remember a major snow storm with reports coming in from every major city on the east coast except Baltimore. So I'm not really surprised that Santa flew from D.C. through parts of Pennsylvania (State College, for Pete's sake!) and on to Delaware and New Jersey.

6) Apparently if you aren't in bed by 10:30 Santa will pass you by. I was surprised to see how early Santa got to parts of America. Given that most of Florida probably goes to bed by 5, I didn't think that would be much of a problem. But I had always assumed he waited until around midnight just to make sure he didn't run into any night owls. I suppose he came through Champaign while we were at the 11 o'clock service at our church. When I went to bed he was delivering to western Canada. I suppose if you want to make the whole thing work you can't be too picky about when. The Cable guy has the same window and far fewer stops to make, so I'll cut him some slack. Plus the milk is less likely to curdle that way.

7) Santa helps me think of my friends. I know people from several parts of the world, it turns out, and though I missed at least half of Santa's delivery, I noted on several occasions that Santa was delivering presents to my friends in far off places. That gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. I hope they liked what Santa got them.

I went to bed before Santa made it out to the Pacific, and missed what time he finished up. I can tell you, because I couldn't sleep the night before, that takeoff is 6am Eastern Time (noon UTC?). I hope that information doesn't compromise his flight path for next year. You can never be too sure.

Who's telling the story?

Each Christmas a little drama unfolds atop our entertainment center. To you it may be just the same old Christmas story, with some people in a barn having a baby and a cast of handfuls looking on adoringly. Well, it may be the same old boring story to you, but it depends on how you tell it. We start with an empty stable.

There's nothing particularly unusual about having some (or all) of your characters arrive throughout the season of Advent, leading up to Christmas, although I suspect most of us just put everybody in there and get it over with. Letting everyone arrive on their own timetable puts the story in motion, and gives it a beginning, middle, and end.

True, it's a pretty conventional structure, and, if you've been through the season enough times it can get a little stale. Starting with the holy family, adding a couple of sheep (last year I think they were the first to arrive, actually) and a shepherd, a random villager or two, and finally a trio of wisepersons just in time for Christmas Eve; it's a nice discipline in gradual evolution and waiting, but you can also use a calendar to the same purpose. Even the two-inch characters seem to get bored. Then things start to happen.

For instance, no sooner did the wiseguys arrive but they suddenly remembered they forgot to do something at home. Or Mary sent them off to boil water.

Don't worry--they got back in time. Plenty of time. This was Mary's first baby so it took a while. So what do you do while you wait? Remember, the wisemen like to look at stars. Since Bethlehem apparently did not have an observatory, they did the next best thing, which was to go up on the roof. By the way, kids, it is not recommended to climb to the roof of your house and look directly at a supernova.

We won't ask where that peasant is going with that sheep. All I can say is that the poor sheep had to put up with a lot. One of the wisemen, Belshazaar, I think, decided that one of the sheep would make an excellent circus animal.



At one point, there was a game of sheep hoisting. I am afraid to ask, but I think the shepherd may be attempting to knock the other sheep off the roof for points by launching the other sheep into him. I think the wisemen put him up to it. Entertainment is difficult in 1st century Palestine where there is no football.

Maybe you are wondering how the first sheep got up in the roof in the first place. Apparently they are good climbers. We never seem to be able to keep ours off the roof; that is, when they are not plummeting to their deaths on the ground far below. They tend to do this in the overnight hours. We've asked our night watch-cat, but he seems not to know anything about this.

A good game of sheep hoisting makes everyone hungry (the wisemen won, by the way, 6-3) and so when a boy from the village shows up with a casserole, he is given a round of applause.

It is not all fun and games, of course. Everybody has to get in a line so they can take turns holding the baby. When it is time to go, everybody is sad. Wave to the wiseguys, kids!

We wouldn't want to argue with received wisdom--surely getting there IS half the fun. But it clearly isn't all the fun. Still, it can be a challenge.



Last year there was a new wrinkle in the story. My wife put up the stable, and the various characters in our drama were again positioned offstage, so that they could gradually arrive a few days at a time during Advent. But there was a new problem.

Our storage unit has four stories. And some of the personnel were placed on lower levels. Anybody looking at this could see the logic problem in asking those folks to simply walk over to the stable and take part in the pageant. Obviously two inch high figurines make of paper and cloth have to obey the same laws of physics as the rest of us. Duh.

There were only a few days left until the big event. The three kings from the east sweated. They paced. They conferenced. And they came up with a plan.

One morning my wife woke up to find the kings climbing their way to glory and a part in the play:

Once all three of them were safely to the top, they kindly lowered the rope so Random Peasant Woman with Son #1 could also join the festivities. Wasn't that swell of them?



There was a joyous reunion.

The last to arrive was the reindeer. Everybody knows clothespin reindeer with red felt noses can fly, so this one was easy.



 Which brings us to this year. We put up our stable on December 5th, the eve of St. Nicholas Day, but this year it remained empty for an unprecendentedly long time. Then I got this email:

From:josephmary438@hotmail.com
 To:michael@pianonoise.com
 Cc:sheperds@hillsnearbethlehem.com,wiseguys@the_east.net
 Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2014 4:06 AM
 Subject: Re: stable for rent

 Dear Dr. Hammer,
 My name is Mary. My husband and I are looking for a nice barn for a few days and noticed that you seem to have one available. We are only a couple of inches tall, and we don't play loud music or anything. We have with us three kings and a shepherd. They also keep to themselves and don't listen to loud music. Do you allow animals? We also have a couple of sheep. We will clean up after them; their poop is probably so small to you that you wouldn't notice it anyhow. We really like the pictures you have on your entertainment center and hope we will have some like that when we can afford it. Unfortunately, the inns around here are really expensive. We tried the one next door but they said they are full. Could you please let us have a place to stay until Dec. 26th?

 Mary and Joseph

 p.s. Do you have a cat? We will stay with you regardless, but we are hoping not. Our sheep had accidents last year by falling off the cliff and we are sure they are not suicidal.



I dutifully forwarded this to my wife, and she agreed they could stay with us. The response was effusive:

----- Forwarded Message -----

 From:josephmary438@hotmail.com
 To:michael@pianonoise.com
 Cc:sheperds@hillsnearbethlehem.com,wiseguys@the_east.net
 Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2014 3:09 PM
 Subject: Re: stable for rent

Dear Dr. Hammer,
That sounds wonderful! Thank you so much for your generosity this holiday season. My husband and I will move in right away. We will probably see you tomorrow. Again, thanks so much!

Mary


On December 20, Michael wrote:

From:michael@pianonoise.com
 To:josephmary438@hotmail.com
 Cc:sheperds@hillsnearbethlehem.com,wiseguys@the_east.net
 Sent: Saturday, December 20, 2014 7:45 PM
 Subject: Re: stable for rent

Dear Mary and Joseph,
We would love to have you come and stay with us. You can come as soon as you want and stay through Epiphany. We do have a cat, but he is not as much of a climber as he was in his younger days, so your sheep will probably be safe, although if they fall to their deaths, we can reincarnate them and put them back in the stable for you: no worries. Also, the sheep poop is no problem. A little Pledge at the end of the holiday season will take care of it, I'm sure. See you soon!
Michael

All of them arrived in a pleasant mob, and promptly set up shop in their usual positions. When Dear Wife awoke on Tuesday she was surprised to see them all, including the baby. Well, I explained to her, this is Mary's tenth baby Jesus (she has been having one every year since we were married) so he must have come quickly. She said she had heard Mary arguing with the angel Gabriel because she had really wanted a girl this year she could named Jesusina. But no dice. The story is the story and it has to go the same way every year.

Well, sort of.

Take a bow, cast people!