DENVER — Santa's piling up more than presents this year. The big man's trackers at NORAD say Santa Claus is breaking records on social media and by old-fashioned telephone this Christmas Eve.
Volunteers NORAD Tracks Santa at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado were fielding 4,000 calls an hour Saturday morning, on pace to break a record. Santa's NORAD Facebook page exceeded 840,000 "likes" by midmorning.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been telling children about Santa's whereabouts every year since 1955, when a newspaper ad invited kids to call Santa on a hotline. A typo led dozens of kids to call the command.
The officers on duty played along and began sharing reports on Santa's progress. It's now a deep-rooted tradition at NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canada command.
___
Online: http://www.noradsanta.org
© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.