{"id":6691,"date":"2013-12-17T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/?p=6691"},"modified":"2013-12-17T16:00:03","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T00:00:03","slug":"holiday-traditions-norad-is-tracking-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/general\/holiday-traditions-norad-is-tracking-santa\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Traditions: NORAD Is Tracking Santa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since 1955, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas tradition, operated by the joint U.S.-Canada command, providing children with information about Santa&#8217;s whereabouts as he leaves the North Pole and delivers presents to children around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The program began on December 24, 1955, when a Sears department store placed an ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper telling children to call Santa Claus at a special number. Unfortunately, the telephone number was incorrect and calls were sent through to Colorado Springs&#8217; Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Harry Shoup, who was on duty that night, instructed his staff to give all children that called in a &#8220;current location&#8221; for Santa Claus. Thus, a tradition was born and continued when NORAD replaced CONAD in 1958.<\/p>\n<p>\u00ad\u00adHere are some other interesting Christmas facts for separating fact from fiction about this revered holiday.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cSilent Night\u201d was written in 1818 and first sung as part of a church service in Austria. A guitar was used because the church organ was so badly rusted it couldn\u2019t be played.<\/li>\n<li>In 1937, the first postage stamp to commemorate Christmas was issued in Austria.<\/li>\n<li>The poinsettia, a traditional Christmas flower, originally grew in Mexico, where it is also known as the \u2018Flower of the Holy Night\u2019. Joel Poinsett first brought it to America in 1829.<\/li>\n<li>When visiting Finland, Santa leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko.<\/li>\n<li>When distributing gifts in Holland, St. Nicholas is accompanied by his servant, Black, whose job is to drop the presents down the chimneys.<\/li>\n<li>In Syria, Christmas gifts are distributed by one of the Wise Men\u2019s camels.<\/li>\n<li>The Christmas song \u201cJingle Bells\u201d was actually written for Thanksgiving. The song was composed in 1857 by James Pierpont, and was originally called \u201cOne Horse Open Sleigh\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>The Puritans forbade the singing of Christmas carols.<\/li>\n<li>King\u2019s Canyon National Park in California is home to America\u2019s official national Christmas tree. The tree, a giant sequoia called the \u201cGeneral Grant Tree\u201d, is over 300 feet high, and was made the official Christmas tree in 1925.<\/li>\n<li>The first Christmas was celebrated on December 25, AD 336 in Rome.<\/li>\n<li>Artificial Christmas trees have outsold real ones since 1991.<\/li>\n<li>The first decorated Christmas tree was in Riga, Latvia in 1510.<\/li>\n<li>Mistletoe (<em>Viscum album<\/em>) is from the Anglo-Saxon word misteltan, which means &#8220;little dung twig&#8221; because the plant spreads though bird droppings.<\/li>\n<li>It is estimated that the single &#8220;White Christmas&#8221; by Irving Berlin is the best-selling single of all time (over 100 million sales worldwide).<\/li>\n<li>Approximately 30-35 million real (living) Christmas trees are sold each year in the U.S.<\/li>\n<li>The official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933.<\/li>\n<li>In 1856 Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, was the first President to place a Christmas tree in the White House.<\/li>\n<li>President Coolidge started the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the White House lawn in 1923.<\/li>\n<li>In the United States, there are more than 15,000 Christmas tree farms.<\/li>\n<li>According to the Guinness world records, the tallest Christmas tree ever cut was a 221-foot Douglas fir displayed in 1950 at the Northgate Shopping Center in Seattle, Washington.<\/li>\n<li>Thomas Edison&#8217;s assistant, Edward Johnson, is credited with the idea of electric lights for Christmas trees in 1882. Christmas tree lights were first mass-produced in 1890.<\/li>\n<li>Alabama was the first state to recognize Christmas as an official holiday, in 1836.<\/li>\n<li>Christmas trees usually grow for about 15 years before they are sold.<\/li>\n<li>In Poland, spiders or spider webs are common Christmas trees decorations. Legend has it, a spider wove a blanket for Baby Jesus.Electric Christmas lights were first used in 1854.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Do you know about other interesting Christmas folklore? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since 1955, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas tradition, operated by the joint U.S.-Canada command, providing children with information about Santa&#8217;s whereabouts as he leaves the North Pole and delivers presents to children around the world. The program began on December 24, 1955, when a Sears department store placed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"importance":[],"type-content":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6691"},{"taxonomy":"importance","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/importance?post=6691"},{"taxonomy":"type-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-content?post=6691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}