NORAD receives record number of Santa inquiries Published Jan. 11, 2007 PETERSON AFB, Colo. -- Santa has long since returned to the North Pole, preparing for next year's visit to the good little boys and girls worldwide. Among those good 'boys and girls' are myriad volunteers who helped track him at North American Aerospace Defense Command's NORAD Tracks Santa program. "On behalf of all the children who had the magical feeling of personal communication with Santa's team this year, NORAD Tracks Santa sends out a big thank you to the volunteers," said Maj. Stacia Reddish, NORAD Tracks Santa project officer. On Christmas Eve, 756 volunteers helped track Santa around the world. The Santa trackers - military personnel from Peterson, Fort Carson, Schriever and the Air Force Academy and special guests - set a new record this year with more than 65,355 telephone calls answered between 2 a.m. Dec 24 and 2 a.m. Dec 25. "This was a 50 percent increase in the number of kids we made happy," said Major Reddish. "And that is what our goal was - to make kids happy with the information as to Santa's whereabouts on Christmas Eve." In addition to the telephone calls, Santa Trackers also answered a record number of e-mails sent to NORAD on Christmas Eve: 7,487 e-mails in just 24 hours. The website, www.noradsanta.org, was hugely popular again this year - it went live on Nov. 17, and through Dec 25, received 905,945,252 hits from 210 countries and territories. "This was a great year for the NORAD Tracks Santa program due to the volunteers who freely give of their own time to respond to children's questions about Santa - we absolutely could not do it without their support," emphasized Major Reddish. "We hope our volunteers had a great time and will join us again next year."