Have you ever heard of NORAD? They are the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada. They are a big deal! This year, as a high priority level mission, the organization will track Santa Claus going around the globe distributing gifts. This is a rather unusual mission for a military organization, but it’s also a wholehearted one, so let’s not criticize for once.

The interesting thing this year is Santa will be trackable on Google Earth . On Dec. 24th, just go to this page and click on the red button that will appear in the middle of the page to download the special Santa Tracking file.

While you wait for the 24th, go hang out on the Kids’ countdown page, where a flash animated interface offers games that evolve around the spirit of Christmas. According to GiftGuide, The game consists of getting a clue and then finding a hidden toy on Google Earth. It’s like Christmas geo-caching without going out in the cold!

I played a few games, and I didn’t see anything leading to clues, but I trust kids to be more cunning than me.

This game makes me wonder: if we can duplicate the earth digitally, and track chimerical objects on this duplicate, we are somehow giving a life to Santa, a real one. That’s pretty spooky in a frankensteinish way if you ask me: That’s the magic of Christmas!

Happy holidays everyone!