Norad's Christmas Eve Santa Tracker gears up for record year using social media to track Santa's journey
Michelle Obama is one of 1,200 volunteers expected to help the personnel of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) this Christmas Eve as it gears up for another bumper year for its Christmas Eve Santa Tracker.
Using social media to chart Santa's journey around the globe, Norad's Christmas Eve Santa Tracker attracted 22 million website visits, 1.2 million Facebook likes, 950,000 app downloads. 129,000 Twitter followers and some 114,000 telephone calls in 2012.
So far the Santa Tracker Facebook page has over one million likes with more than 30,000 users talking about it right now.
In previous years more than a fifth of enquiries have come from Britain with volunteers fielding questions such as 'what is Santa's age?'; 'does Santa leave presents for pets?'; and unsurprisingly, the most popular question 'where is Santa and when is he arriving at my house?'.
Norad's Christmas Eve Santa Tracker began by accident when a local newspaper in Colorado accidentally printed the phone number of Norad's predecessor as part of a Christmas ad in 1955.
You can track Santa tonight via the Norad Santa website or via social media on the official Facebook page or by using the Twitter handle @NoradSanta.