The wife’s family was over the Christmas Eve dinner last night and we had a veritable feast. Emily was pretty excited about the impending arrival of Santa and her Uncle Mike suggested that we check the Santa Norad site. “NORAD is the bi-national military organization of Canada and the United States responsible for the aerospace defense of the two countries.” –from the site. They’ve been tracking Santa’s flight on Christmas eve for years.I called up the site on the internet and called Emiy over to watch. Santa was over Brazil at the time and the official Norad voice intoned as much in that very official-sounding military speech you hear in the movies. “Santa is heading North and expected to arrive over the United States in a few hours…” or something to that effect. Emily ran away from the computer and disappeared into the living room. A few minutes later I went in search of her (I didn’t hear her laughing and goofing around as usual) and found her in her bed, still dressed, and totally asleep - the kind of asleep where you can pick up her arms and they just flop down - completely unconscious.

If only Norad would work as well every night