Santa Update.com has started the annual effort to track Santa Claus. Since 1991 the site has provided news of Santa Claus and the North Pole for fans all over the world starting the effort every holiday season before Thanksgiving and updating news daily until Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, the site provides updates on Santa’s position and tells the story of Santa’s flight as he makes his way around the world.
“We are a little different than some Santa trackers out there,” said Elf Ernest, Santa’s Vice President of Public Relations. “We don’t get our data from NASA or from satellites. We track him ourselves straight from Santa’s sleigh and from Santa himself. Kids love to follow Santa but they have a lot of questions. We work all season to not only keep them informed but also to answer all their questions.”
The site began offline as a single effort to convince one little girl about the goodness of Santa Claus. Back in 1991 she was five years old and started a new family as her mother married. They started a tradition the little girl had never heard of before — Santa Claus. She didn’t believe at first but Elf Ernest worked with her all season long, sending her “Santa updates” every day via a fax machine from the North Pole. That tradition remains alive, though the little girl is now 24 years old. “Of course I still believe in Santa,” Aubree, age 24, told us via phone. “I still have those original Santa updates and I still follow what Elf Ernest writes each season.”
“Back then Aubree would write to ask questions like ‘Why do we use red and green at Christmas?’ or ‘How does Santa get around the world in one night?’ — things like that,” Elf Ernest said. “We answer those questions. Since that time we have handled questions from kids all over the world.”
Aubree took her faxed Santa updates with her to school to show to other kids. Soon, parents of other children wrote to Elf Ernest to get his updates and a tradition was born. He faxed from the North Pole for a few seasons before he found the Internet, where the updates have been ever since.
“Kids want to know everything. They want to understand how Santa’s sleigh flies. They want to be an elf. They want to know more about Mrs. Claus. So they write, write, write and we try to answer. That is our job.” Elf Ernest said.
Santa Update.com is open year round and feeds news to hundreds of websites and all of the top Christmas forums on the Internet. This year Santa Updates will expand to Merry Christmas Radio.
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