NORAD's Amazing 60-Year Santa Tracking History (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: The National Archive blog takes a look at the background of the nation's premier defense unit's 60 years of tracking of Santa as he travels around the globe delivering his Christmas goodies. Colonel Harry Shoup began the tradition in 1955, after receiving a phone call from a child expecting to reach Santa Claus. The misdirected call was the result of the child reversing two numbers of a Santa Line phone number printed in a Sears advertisement, according to the National Archives.

Comments

Re:Shoot it down.

[plover]

They did. They shot him down back in '58, and as part of a massive cover-up, Eisenhower wrote out a secret directive ordering parents to 'play Santa' and wrap gifts for their kids.

Gotta go, it sounds like someone's whispering outside and making helicopter noises, so I ought to check on it.

Re:What happened to political correctness??

[mark-t]

The term Xmas is over a thousand years old, and is derived from what was at one time a fairly common usage of a capital letter X to denote Christ (possibly derived from the fact that the word Christ itself begins with a letter that resembles an 'X' in Greek). The term itself originated with Christians (and among those who could write, they may have denoted themselves as X-tians). While there are Christians today that object to "Xmas" under the notion that it allegedly "takes Christ out of Christmas", this objection is driven by ignorance of the actual origin of the term. "Xmas" does not take Christ out of Christmas, and if anything, highlights the association even more strongly by using an archaic form to emphasize it.

If you object to "Christmas" because you don't believe in the story behind it, you may want to reconsider what you call it.