North Pole Flight Command is reporting that sleigh sighting reports have spiked from tracker elves in nearly every sector over the past month.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Elf Wilbur Boeing, a flight analyst at Flight Command. “Freelance elf reports seem to be dominating this trend and they appear to be coming from a lot of coastal areas, such as the Pacific Coast of Canada, the USA and Mexico. That makes sense because that’s the flight corridor to the North Pole for inbound traffic.”

Elf Pinky of Sector 5 says the reports coming in from trackers are “off the charts” for October. She says the sleigh sighting reports are plentiful but she also reports robust activity with weather, roof and local Christmas reports.

Likewise in Sector 1, which largely has seen reporting increase from the South China Sea to the North Pacific – another popular flight corridor, Elf Randi says that because of so many sleigh sightings they are also seeing a corresponding increase in tracker elf sign-ups in Sector 1. “What’s happening is that word of these sleighs in the skies is spreading, mostly I think on social media, and as people ask ‘what is that?’ and they learn they are flying sleighs, they naturally get curious about Santa and the work the North Pole does, so they sign up.” Elf Randi said.

The same thing is happening in the Atlantic, according to Elf Rolf, Elf Supervisor for Sector 3 in Europe and Africa. “All this traffic to and from the North Pole in September and October has led to a lot more new elf sign-ups. People are interested. They want to help.”

Elf Flip has promised an update on the total count of tracker elves world wide in the coming days. We will see what impact this has had on all the recruiting numbers for new elves.

Boy, what a day it has been. Meetings, phone calls, Zoom meetings – we have just had it all going on.

Basically it all boils down to this, gang: this crisis in Santa’s workshop is changing the face of tracking Santa for Santa this year. I’m still trying to figure out how it is going to do that but I can tell you that Santa suddenly had big concerns about how many active QUALITY tracker elves we have this year.

Remember last year when Crash told us it didn’t matter how many elves we have? Remember when Elf Moe and Santa said we’d rather focus on quality elves rather than having a bunch of elves.

Well, that was last year.

This year is different.

The other Elf Supervisors might be speaking to this soon too. They were in all the meetings and all the calls. The message wasn’t just for me.

But don’t kid yourself. We’re the biggest sector and during most of these meetings I felt like Santa was talking directly to me.

We’re the target guys. We’re the last sector he delivers to. We’re the biggest sector he delivers to. This whole workshop thing is going to affect us the most. Mark it down right now. Christmas Eve has the potential to be really hairy tracking Santa.

Every North Pole Department is on this problem. And every one of those departments all say the same thing: Sector 5, Sector 5, Sector 5.

So, for whatever is coming for this year we need more elves for it. A. LOT. MORE. ELVES.

How many? Santa said he’d be checking in on me about the numbers.

That being said, right now, we’re at about 6 million verified trackers of different types – independent, North Pole and Junior Trackers – and we’re going to need MILLIONS more in Sector 5.

So…it is time to start talking to your family and friends. Seek out believers first. Start talking to them about the situation at Santa’s Workshop. Tell them that Santa needs our help this year. Help them understand that you will teach them how to track Santa for Santa.

In the meantime, I’ll try to figure out what kind of final figure Santa has in mind.

Thank you.

Yesterday, Elf Z from North Pole Flight Command posted that the test flights of Santa’s sleigh are headed to the US and Canada Pacific Coast areas over the next week:

Flight plans from North Pole Flight Command show that the test flights of Santa’s sleigh are indeed now over Sector 5 and the plan for the next several takes will take those flights up the Pacific Coast, thru California, Oregon, Washington and then up into Canada.

Major metropolitan areas include Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento, the SF Bay Area, Redding, Bend, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver BC. It’s possible flights might be visible in Reno, and maybe Boise.

In my briefing with Elf Buck Sanchez this morning he confirmed the same information.

Remember, the Santa Tracker Map is not going to show you the absolute location of the test flights or the broad areas covered by the fleet of 12 test flight sleighs. So if the map says “Los Angeles” you might see test flights in the skies anywhere in that surrounding area.

We are sure hoping we get a lot of reports. We are expecting a lot of coverage in the northern areas of the sector and, from what I am told, the US and Canada will have a lot of exposure to the test flights all month.

Please use the sleigh sighting report if you think you see one.

The Regional Tracking Center for Sector 5 located in Christmas Island, Nova Scotia is fully operational and ready to receive reports.

I don’t like being last, and we’re not. But we’re third. Not too happy about that, but what can you do with things out of your control, eh?

I’m getting a lot of messages from trackers in our sector. I’d like to publicly answer some of the questions I’m getting:

1. How long do I have to wait to get promoted? – I’ve answered this in my last post.
2. I am an experienced tracker with an old account that went dormant. Can I get it back? Sorry, no. That’s an Elf Moe thing and I can’t do anything about it.
3. Do you have a file on me if I’ve tracked Santa as an elf before? I do. It will be helpful in getting you promoted.
4. If I let my account go inactive, can I still apply to be Sector Lead? Of course. There are lots of reasons you go inactive, it won’t count against you.
5. I really need access to certain areas of the site but I’m a Junior Tracker Elf and I can’t see things. Nothing I can do about that. Talk to Elf Moe.
6. What days do you want us to send in weekly weather reports? We’re not ready for those. I’ll let you know.
7. Do you have any direction on setting up my home tracking center? Not yet. Looking to Elf Crash for direction on that one.
8. Is my Elf on the Shelf authorized to track Santa for Santa? They would have to apply like anyone else. I don’t know about those guys really.
9. Will there be an Elf Chat for Sector 5 trackers this year? Do you want one? I haven’t given it much thought.
10. I want to visit the tracking center in Jamaica. Can I? I doubt it. But let me know if you’re in the area, I’ll meet you for lunch or something.
11. Will we know in advance when the test flights are in our sector? We will in the early months. It could always change.

Is this format helpful to you guys? That new message feature is fine but it’s one-way. I cannot answer you directly and I don’t want to answer questions necessarily on the Elf Wall, because then Junior Trackers won’t see them. So does this work?

Feel free to use the comments below.