Merry Christmas! I’ve sure you have much better things to do today than spend a few seconds on Tumblr, so thanks for spending a little bit of your time with us today! Or tomorrow, whenever it is you’re reading this.
Today I’d like to post my favorite Christmas video of all time, “Joe Pesci with His Head on Fire.”
Mele Kalikimaka, from us to you. Here’s Amy Hanaiali’i and Jake Shimabukuro with “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, live at the Blaisdell.
Why NORAD Started Tracking Santa
Kristen Wyatt, the AP:
Santa-tracking volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado said they fielded about 102,000 telephone queries on his progress beginning early Saturday, breaking the previous mark of 80,000.
All well and good, but why did they start tracking Santa in the first place? I only realized I didn’t know the answer to this question when she gave it later in the article:
The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been telling children about Santa’s whereabouts every year since 1955. That was the year a Colorado Springs newspaper ad invited kids to call Santa on a hot line, but the number had a typo, and dozens of kids wound up talking to the Continental Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD’s predecessor.
The officers on duty played along and began sharing reports on Santa’s progress. Tracking Santa is now a tradition at NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canada command that monitors the North American skies and seas from a control center at the Peterson base.
Awesome.