How NORAD Started Tracking Santa

OK, one last post before I leave work

Just about everyone knows that NORAD tracks Santa every year, but how many of you know how all that got started?  I heard the story on the radio this morning while driving to work and just about laughed my head off

From Wikipedia:

In 1956, a Colorado Springs-based Sears store ran an advertisement encouraging people to call Santa Claus on a special kind of telephone hotline. Due to a printing error, the phone number that was printed was the hotline was actually for Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD). Then-Colonel Harry Shoup received the first call on Christmas Eve of 1955, from a six-year old boy who began reciting his Christmas list. Shoup then didn’t find the call funny, but after asking the mother of the second caller what was happening, then realizing the mistake that had occurred, he told his staff to give Santa’s position to any child who called in.

Now that’s how it should be done, folks   Kudos to Col. Shoup, the U.S. Armed Forces, and now to or Canadian allies to the north for having a sense of humor and some Christmas Spirit