I’ve been following Santa’s progress on the NORAD Santa web site and particularly enjoyed this video:

Many years ago, a department store in Colorado set up a telephone number for children to call and talk to Santa.

But when the local newspaper published the telephone number, there was a typo. (That happens sometimes.) And so, when children started calling, they reached, not Santa, but … NORAD, the American and Canadian missile defense system.

That gave the guys at NORAD a great idea. After all, they were already set up to track incoming airborne vehicles from the north …. so they set up their own telephone line, allowing them to reassure kids on Christmas Eve that Santa was, indeed, on his way. Now, instead of a telephone line, they have a web site.

On Wednesday, I suggested to a former co-worker that she and her daughter visit the NORAD Santa web site, http://www.noradsanta.org. I meant to come back and post about it here that day, but I forgot about it until just now, when it was the answer to a question on “Duel.”

The tracking feature, of course, doesn’t go live until Christmas Eve, but there’s plenty more to explore at the site over the weekend — games and music and fun features. Plus, there’s a link to download Google Earth, which you will need for the tracking features on Monday if you don’t already have it.

Kids of all ages, up to and including 107, should visit this site.

Me and Santa

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

… there is a John I. Carney. Here’s photographic proof.

Monday is the big conclusion of the year-long observance of Bedford County’s 200th birthday. I’m a member of the Bicentennial Organizing Committee.

Today, we had our next-to-last event: a two-hour “Christmas on the Square” climaxing with the first-ever lighting of a newly-planted courthouse Christmas tree.

The newspaper sponsored photos with Santa in the courthouse, and when I was looking around inside Santa, who knows me, invited me to sit on his lap.

Whenever Jimmy Jones gives me the photo, some time next week, I will post it here.

Meanwhile, living alone and not entertaining, it’s been a few years since I replaced my last little artificial tree. I found a dirt-cheap tree with fiber-optic lights among the branches today at Dollar General Market, and I put it up tonight. It’s not much, but it makes things feel a little more like Christmas.