Dec. 24, 1955

I wonder how many of you know about this. On the date above Sears placed an ad in the Colorado Springs newspaper and told children they could call Santa and gave them "Santa's" phone number.
There was a mistake in the phone number and instead of the calls going to the Old Man they went to CONAD- Colorado Continental Air Defense Command. Colonel Shoup, who was on duty that night told his staff to give all the kids that called the "current location" for Santa. Thus, this is how the tradition began.

NORAD replaced CONAD in 1958.NORAD relies on volunteers to make the program possible. Each volunteer handles 40 calls per hour and the team handles 12,000 emails and 70,000 calls.

Yes Virginia,there REALLY is a Santa Claus!