As Christmas Eve got under way in the UK, Santa Claus had already been travelling half-way around the world, according to a US and Canadian airspace warning system.
This year, as in every year for more than 50 years, the North American Aerospace Defence Command has been tracking Santa's journey around the world, using radar, satellite, fighter planes and, now, a "Santa Cam".
The Norad team says there systems can tell exactly where Father Christmas is at any given moment.
It expects more than 20 million people to use its website which follows the journey and tens of thousands of children to ring in for an update on Santa's progress.
Jamie Graybeal, part of the Norad team monitoring Santa from Cheyenne mountain in Colorado, told Sky News: "By the end of the day we will have taken about 100,000 phone calls from kids all around the world, including North Korea, Iran. We take calls from children all around the world.
"We've got technology that allows us to keep track of Santa. We always know where he is and we actually even know how many gifts he has delivered."
The tradition began by accident in 1955 when a little girl in the US telephoned what she thought was a Talk-to-Santa hotline.
The number she reached, however, was not Santa's, but was even more exclusive with only the US President and a four-star general having access.
So, it was hard to know who was more surprised by the telephone call - the little girl or Colonel Harry Shoup, the man who answered the phone and heard a request for Santa.
A department store which had advertised a Talk-to-Santa line had printed the wrong number, but their loss was Norad's gain.
Colonel Shoup decided the little girl could not be disappointed and Santa's tracking service was launched.
"It's the innocence of the story that makes it so special," spokesman John Cornelio said.
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