Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011

DENVER (AP) -- Santa's piling up more than presents this year. The big man's trackers at NORAD say Santa Claus is breaking records on social media and by old-fashioned telephone this Christmas Eve.

Volunteers NORAD Tracks Santa at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado were fielding 4,000 calls an hour Saturday morning, on pace to break a record. Santa's NORAD Facebook page exceeded 840,000 "likes" by midmorning.

To track Santa, head over to Noradsanta.org.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been telling children about Santa's whereabouts every year since 1955, when a newspaper ad invited kids to call Santa on a hotline. A typo led dozens of kids to call the command.

The officers on duty played along and began sharing reports on Santa's progress. It's now a deep-rooted tradition at NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canada command.

(Copyright 2011, The Associated Press)