Track Santa's trip around the globe in 3D with a little help from NORAD and Google

(Image credit: Screenshot/NORAD)

In 1955, a Sears advertisement mistakenly printed a top secret military phone number in an ad inviting local children to call Santa Claus. But when a little boy got through to Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, he played along, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa's trip around the world every year since.

So if Santa's your thing, head over to NORADSanta.org to keep tabs on his progress. Or, if he isn't, check out this analysis from Vocativ's Alexandra Ossola for The Week on why you're totally right not to lie to your kids about a mythical elf.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.