Christmas is just around the corner in 2025, and you might be enjoying the winter tucked up under a comfy blanket. Santa goes on a tour every year, away from his home in the North Pole, to distribute gifts to children around the world.
Legend has it that St. Nicholas learned of a family in need and climbed down their chimney to surprise them by placing bags of gold into their hanging stockings. He became popular as Santa Claus after this, and stockings are hung on Christmas Eve.
Tracking Santa's journey every year is an exciting activity for kids and adults alike. It's not an easy job, traveling thousands of miles on a Reindeer-pulled sleigh to deliver all the gifts in a single evening.
Speaking of which, you can keep an eye on the journey with the help of modern technology. The search giant Google operates one of the most famous Santa-tracking tools on the web. Launched in 2004, Google Santa Tracker uses rich graphics and animation to simulate Santa's journey on Christmas Eve.
A countdown timer is displayed in the top-right corner of the screen, showing how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds remain until Santa begins his journey from the North Pole. Santa's location and progress will appear on a map once the tracker is live. Here's how the tracker looked last year:
It goes without saying that Google Santa Tracker is primarily meant for children, who can play different games, learn about holiday traditions in various countries, or know what Santa Claus is called in other languages.
If Google isn't your cup of tea, you can use the NORAD Tracks Santa website, which has been around for almost three decades now. The program was initially developed by the American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) back in 1955, when human volunteers took phone calls from kids to inform them about Santa's location.
Its website uses 3D satellite imagery to depict Santa's journey on a map, where you can get a 360-degree view of his sleigh being pulled. NORAD Santa Tracker's modern version was updated last year with an AI-powered chatbot developed by Microsoft. In fact, the Redmond giant has made a significant contribution to NORAD's tracker in the past.
NORAD's Santa Tracker is also available as an official app for Android and iPhone/iPad. By the way, the phone line (1-877-HI-NORAD) still works and will be live on December 24 as the program celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2025.
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