By MARY STEWART | The Selma Times-Journal

The crew members of the North American Aerospace Defense Command are preparing to track Santa’s Christmas Eve flight for the 62nd time.

The tradition of tracking Santa’s flight came to be when a local advertisement misprinted the number for children to call Santa.

They instead printed a number that went straight to the Continental Air Defense.

The colonel at the time, Harry Shoup, and his staff checked their radar’s to see if Santa had already taken flight.

They continued to update children who called, and the Santa tracking tradition was born.

Now, with many years of experience, NORAD has new technology to make sure they know where Santa is flying at all times.

They use radars, satellites and jet fighters during Santa’s famous journey so they get updates every minute.

They also place “Santa Cams” all over the globe to get pictures of him in his sleigh to put on their website.

The website also features a tour of the North Pole and information on NORAD HQ. The North Pole has games, stories about Santa, Christmas songs and a video on Santa and NORAD for children to enjoy.

It can be translated into eight different languages that include English, Spanish and French among others.

Tracking Santa has never been easier thanks to NORAD. All you have to do is visit www.noradsanta.org.

If your child would rather get Santa’s exact location, they can call 1-877- HI NORAD (1-877-446-6723) or send an email to noradtrackssanta@outlook.com starting at 4 a.m. MST on Dec. 24.

Families all around the world rely on NORAD to track Santa every year, and it doesn’t look like this tradition will be ending soon.