Today, instead of talking about the history of our centuries-old Christmas traditions, let’s talk about a tradition that dates back only to 1955.
As children, many of us followed the news on Christmas Eve that Santa was in the air and being tracked on radar by NORAD — the U.S.-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command.
As verified by Snopes.com, it all started with a missprint in a newspaper ad. Someone with Sears Roebuck came up with the idea of placing ads in newspapers all over the country with a big picture of Santa saying: “Hey, Kiddies! Call me direct. Call me on my private phone and I will talk to you personally any time day or night."
Each ad contained a local phone number to call.
Unfortunately, the ad in the Colorado Springs, Colo., newspaper contained an error. It urged kids to call a secure phone line at CONAD, based in Colorado Springs.
The first phone call came to U.S. Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the director of operations at CONAD — the Continental Air Defense Command — the predecessor to NORAD. Shoup was immediately concerned because that phone only rang in the case of a crisis.
In 2009, Terri Van Keuren, Shoup's daughter, told the story as told to her by her father.
Instead of someone in his chain of command, the caller was a little girl. She asked, "Is this Santa Claus?"
"Dad's pretty annoyed," Van Keuren recalled. "He barks into the phone," demanding to know who is calling.
"The little voice is now crying," Van Keuren continued. " 'Is this one of Santa's elves, then?' "
Shoup finally understood the call wasn’t a prank and told the little girl: “Yes, I am. Have you been a good little girl?" Before long, the phone was ringing off the hook. Shoup grabbed a nearby airman and told him to answer the calls and “just pretend you're Santa.” Then Shoup came up with the idea of offering information about Santa's progress from the North Pole. In 1958 CONAD became NORAD, and the tradition continued. A phone number was publicized. Anyone was invited to call, especially on Dec. 24, to learn where Santa was.
Snopes said that, over the years, those phones have been answered by countless Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel and their families.
The Atlantic magazine recently ran an article expanding on the Snopes account and reported that, as of 2009, volunteers were handling more than 12,000 emails and more than 70,000 phone calls from more than 200 countries and territories.
I assume that original hotline number has been changed, though.