Australia, Japan, Taiwan… Santa’s tour began on Sunday under the close surveillance of the American army, which for decades has been tracking the movements of the man in red every December 24.
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Departing from his North Pole base, his sleigh flew over Jakarta at 3:38 p.m. GMT, according to the United States and Canadian Military Aviation Security Command (NORAD).
Even faster than the US Air Force F-15s, “it slows down so that we can escort it,” assures NORAD.
Around 10:54 p.m. local time, Santa Claus, his sleigh and his reindeer began distributing gifts in Quebec.
This tracking — made possible according to NORAD by sensors in the red nose of Rudolph, one of the nine reindeer pulling the sleigh — is an institution in the United States.
It all started with a typo, in 1955, in an advertisement for the Sears department store chain calling in a local Colorado newspaper to call Santa Claus.
Supposed to be the direct line of the famous bearded man, the number indicated was in fact that – in the middle of the Cold War – of the NORAD red telephone.
First taken aback when he found himself in line with a young boy asking him if he was really “Santa Claus”, the officer on duty that day, Colonel Harry Shoup, got caught up in the game.
He instructed his men to broadcast information about Santa’s whereabouts and even called a local radio station to announce that he had seen a strange object in the sky.
68 years later, NORAD still perpetuates the tradition.
This year, US President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden have also closely monitored the movements of the man in red.
“This evening, the President and First Lady participated in North American Aerospace Defense Command Santa Claus follow-up calls with children and families across the country,” the White House said in a statement.
After crossing the Asia-Pacific, Santa’s sleigh flew over Israel, the southern Gaza Strip, Africa and Palmer Station, a US research base in Antarctica.
It then traveled across South America before reaching the United States, delivering around 100,000 gifts per second, or a total of 4.9 billion gifts as of 1:30 a.m. GMT Monday, according to NORAD.