How Tracking Santa for Santa Works was the title of a special elf chat between Elf Max and Elf Roger Star, International Director of Santa Trackers at the North Pole. Here is their conversation:
| Elf Max | Hello, Elves. Our chat with Elf Roger Star will begin at the top of the hour. |
| Elf Max | Today’s chat is an informational event, meaning Elf Roger and I will hold a discussion that will be archived. It is designed to be reviewed later by those who cannot attend. |
| Elf Max | If you have questions you want to ask, please wait until Roger and I have completed our discussion. |
| Elf Roger Star | Hello, Max. Let’s go. |
| Elf Max | Joining us today is Elf Roger Star, International Director of Santa Trackers at the North Pole |
| Elf Max | Roger is here to provide information about How Tracking Santa for Santa Works. Roger, what’s the first thing people need to know about tracking Santa? |
| Elf Roger Star | I think it is important that people understand that the way we track Santa is not the way most people track Santa |
| Elf Max | What do you mean? |
| Elf Roger Star | In the age of the Internet there are a lot of websites out there who put up a map and just say “There’s Santa”. That is how they track him. We can’t do that. |
| Elf Max | Why not? |
| Elf Roger Star | Our job, as elves, is to help Santa get around the world. |
| Elf Roger Star | So our tracking of Santa comes with some responsibility TO Santa. |
| Elf Roger Star | We, as tracker elves, feed information about our local area to North Pole Flight Command |
| Elf Roger Star | Flight Command then organizes that information and feeds it to Santa |
| Elf Roger Star | That requires tracker elves to know where Santa is at all times and to know what Flight Command needs in order to help Santa |
| Elf Max | Roger, why has the North Pole set it up this way? |
| Elf Roger Star | Well, the world is a big place. When we first started, Flight Command was set up as a means to just communicate with Santa |
| Elf Roger Star | He took off into the world and he had to deal with whatever he ran into |
| Elf Roger Star | Flight Command, after a few years, started sending out scouts to different parts of the world ahead of Santa |
| Elf Roger Star | Just so that he could know before he got somewhere if he would run into any problems |
| Elf Roger Star | But we found we just didn’t have enough elves to do that. The answer was to get more elves |
| Elf Roger Star | So since that time we have slowly working to find people who could be an elf, who wanted to help Santa, and who could give timely information about stuff going on where they live that could be passed along to Santa |
| Elf Max | Okay, so how does tracking Santa for Santa then work? |
| Elf Roger Star | Most wait until Christmas Eve to look at their maps to see where Santa is. Many in some parts of the world are surprised to learn that Santa has already taken off |
| Elf Roger Star | In tracking Santa we do not believe in surprises, Max |
| Elf Roger Star | We believe in planning. Elves should know ahead of time when Santa is taking off, where he is headed and what information he requires. |
| Elf Max | So you’re saying someone tracking Santa here cannot wait until December 24th to get started. |
| Elf Roger Star | Correct |
| Elf Roger Star | It is vital that weeks and months ahead of time they are on the North Pole websites. |
| Elf Roger Star | They should be reading the North Pole News |
| Elf Roger Star | They should know what’s happening with the development and test flights of Santa’s sleigh |
| Elf Roger Star | They should be up on the condition and readiness of the reindeer |
| Elf Roger Star | And they should be training to understand how to fill out reports for the North Pole for when it really counts |
| Elf Max | Well, how do they know when it counts? |
| Elf Roger Star | Well, obviously not much is going to count until December |
| Elf Roger Star | But honestly, it is set up in such a way that an Elf Supervisor can say to all the elves in their sector “Hey, Santa wants a roof report”, and then they would send in that report for their area right away |
| Elf Max | Will there be a lot of calls for that in December? |
| Elf Roger Star | It depends, but, yeah, there could be. Santa is a planner and to plan he needs information. He might want to know the specific weather report for certain areas, or maybe if there are construction delays in some places. It just depends. |
| Elf Roger Star | We really don’t know what he will want to know or when he will want to know it. |
| Elf Roger Star | As a general rule, I’d say elves tracking Santa for Santa need to be ready to supply information up to a whole week before Santa takes off. |
| Elf Max | Wow…that IS tracking Santa different. Roger, what goes in to tracking Santa from the North Pole perspective? |
| Elf Roger Star | Well we have a lot more to worry about than just know how Santa flies. |
| Elf Roger Star | Flight Command is following not just Santa’s sleigh, but thousands of sleighs. |
| Elf Roger Star | Long before Santa takes flight we launch something we call Operation Airlift |
| Elf Roger Star | It uses thousands of sleighs who do different things in support of Santa |
| Elf Roger Star | We still send out scout sleighs |
| Elf Roger Star | We send out weather trackers, sleighs that stay in the skies constantly to report on severe weather issues all over the world |
| Elf Roger Star | And of course, we coordinate the moving of a lot of freight |
| Elf Roger Star | Santa’s sleigh can only hold so much stuff and his sack only holds less than that |
| Elf Roger Star | We support Santa by keeping him continually stocked with the stuff that he delivers |
| Elf Roger Star | That effort alone takes better than 40,000 sleighs and hundreds of thousands of elves |
| Elf Roger Star | Sleighs are taking off and coming in to the sleigh port long before Santa takes off and long after he returns |
| Elf Roger Star | There are a lot of things in motion |
| Elf Max | Does Flight Command have one map that shows all those flights? |
| Elf Roger Star | No, it’s too confusing to do that. And it is information, a lot of it, that people don’t need. |
| Elf Roger Star | What we try to stay focused on is Santa. That’s the most important sleigh. The rest of it is managed by responsible elves who also have to know where Santa is all the time |
| Elf Max | Are their any conflicts in the air with so many sleighs flying around? |
| Elf Roger Star | We have never had an accidents. We stagger the sleighs at different altitudes. Outbound flights will fly at one altittude and inbound in another – and Santa can go wherever he needs to go. We keep the other sleighs out of his way |
| Elf Max | Roger, what are the odds that people out there in the world can see a flying sleigh on December 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th? |
| Elf Roger Star | Actually, the odds are pretty good. It is hard to keep that many sleighs hidden. |
| Elf Max | Do you want them to be hidden? |
| Elf Roger Star | We want them to be safe. The less people can see them the lower the chances of something bad happening. |
| Elf Max | Let’s talk about what happens in the skies BEFORE Santa takes off. What is that process? |
| Elf Roger Star | Our first flights of Operation Merry Christmas usually launch around December 22nd. Those flights are dedicated to tracking weather events around the world. They are the sleighs and the reindeer who stay up the longest |
| Elf Max | Do trackers track those flights? |
| Elf Roger Star | No, these are very technical sleighs we send. They are wired to the teeth. We manage them mostly online, using special technology |
| Elf Max | Ok, then what happens? |
| Elf Roger Star | Well, all that time we are gathering information from our Regional tracking centers. The is a tracking center for each sector. We use that information to make lists of follow-up information we might need. |
| Elf Max | You lost me, what does that mean? |
| Elf Roger Star | Each Regional Tracking Center, from the day they open, sends in a daily report. Even now at the end of September we get that information. |
| Elf Roger Star | From those reports we match up what is known about believers in that sector. Using Santa’s lists and combining what we know, we develop new lists of stuff we’re concerned about. |
| Elf Roger Star | Let me give you an example from Sector 1, where there are a lot of islands. |
| Elf Roger Star | There’s a little island not far off the coast of New Zealand. A believer there by the name of Mela is someone Santa has special information about. |
| Elf Roger Star | But this is an isolated, small island where high winds are frequently a problem. Landing a sleigh there is tough |
| Elf Roger Star | So, we are studying weather patterns and wind tendencies on that island. Santa has a mission to deliver for Mela and he does not want to fail. |
| Elf Roger Star | Our job, between now and Christmas, is to make it safe for Santa to get in and out of there. |
| Elf Roger Star | Fortunately, we have a tracker elf on that island, an elf we know as Elf Pringle. Pringle is feeding us instrument readings. |
| Elf Roger Star | Now, granted, that’s an unusual request for a tracker elf. But he’s willing to do it and he’s doing good work. |
| Elf Roger Star | We are confident that between now and Christmas we will have all we need to direct Santa so that he and the reindeer can go there safely and deliver |
| Elf Roger Star | We have millions of such situations. Some require more information that others. But all of them require a lot of work. |
| Elf Max | Wow, I had no idea. That’s really detailed. How can North Pole Flight Command keep all this straight? |
| Elf Roger Star | Well, we’re not perfect but we work hard to help Santa as much as we can. |
| Elf Max | Roger, thank you for taking the time to explain this. Will you be available for follow-up questions? |
| Elf Roger Star | Of course. We can schedule more chats, handle questions by message or email. We will do whatever we can to train the millions of elves Santa is asking for. |
| Elf Max | Great, thanks for the chat today, Roger. |
| Elf Roger Star | Thank you and Merry Christmas. |
I sure would be a lucky elf if I was mentioned like this.
Wow that’s incredible thanks
Merry crismas, I’m a new tracker elf what do I do?