Santa has officially set off around the world and you can track where he is

It's finally Christmas Eve, which means there's just one more sleep to go until the big day.

Today also means that Santa Claus has clocked on for his one working day of the year, which sees him fly around the world to deliver presents for children to wake up to.

That is, if you've behaved this year and made it onto the Nice List, otherwise you can expect to wake up and find a lump of coal in your stocking.

And for anyone who's feeling particularly worried about whether or not Father Christmas is going to stop off on their roof, don't worry, as you can spend the whole day tracking him from the comfort of your own home.

Father Christmas is officially on his way (Getty Stock Images)

Thanks to NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, we can watch Mr Claus fly around the world in live time, because not even Santa is immune to modern satellite tracking.

Why does NORAD track Santa Claus?

Considering the fact that NORAD is a joint US and Canadian military operation which manages North American airspace and monitors oncoming threats, tracking a man whose job it is to deliver presents doesn't seem like something which would be high up on the list of priorities.

And yet, it's something which NORAD has been doing since 1955, meaning the 2025 tracker will be the 70th time kids have been able to follow Santa around the world.

The sweet tradition started when a child accidently called the organisation, then called CONAD, after reading a newspaper advert for kids to call Santa Claus. However the number on the advert had been misprinted, meaning children who called the number were actually put through to the organisation's command centre.

He's got a lot of stops to make before reaching the UK (Getty Stock Images)

According to an account from December 1955 shared by LA Times, a young girl reached Colonel Harry Shoup after dialling the number.

Shoup, who'd expecting the call to be from the Pentagon, was surprised to hear a young girl asking him is he was 'really Santa Claus'. After a brief moment of confusion, he confirmed to the girl that he was indeed Santa and requested to speak to her mother, learning that the child had dialled the misprinted number listed in the advertisement.

After several further calls from excited children, the idea to create a Santa tracker was born.

The tracker has evolved since its inception in 1955, with the modern version allowing kids to follow a live feed showing the famous red sleigh as it leaves the North Pole and flies worldwide.

For anyone interesting in watching Santa, the stream begins at 9am GMT and you can tune here or follow along below:

His first stop will be in the island nation of Kiribati, which has the furthest time zone in the world at UTC +14.