Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Tori. Today is Monday, December 24th, Christmas Eve, 2018.

And we begin with Santa Airborne and on his way.

Norad, the North American Aerospace Defense Command,

has been keeping tabs on St. Nick's round the world journey

for more than six decades.

And starting this morning, families can watch his progress on Norad's Santa Cam's.

The tracking began in 1955 when a local newspaper ad misprinted Santa's phone number.

Instead, it gave out the direct line to Air Force Colonel Harry Schaup at the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center in Colorado Springs.

Schaup did his best to answer kids questions that night and when Norad was formed three years later to help

protect the airspace over North America, the command continued the holiday tradition of

tracking Santa and his reindeer. Just how many reindeer does Santa have?

According to the 1823 poem, a visit from St. Nick,

now more commonly known as The Night Before Christmas

by Clement Clark Moore, there are eight.

Dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen, comet, cupid, donner, and Blitzen.

Rudolph didn't join the team until 1939.

Thanks to the popularity of the book,

Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,

and the song that followed in 1949.

Former President Barack Obama helped the big man in red by stunning patients as he delivered gifts at a children's hospital in Washington, D.C. last week.

Wearing a Santa cap and carrying a sack of presents, Mr. Obama greeted patients and their parents at Children's Hospital.

He told them his reindeer were stuck in some snow, so he had to take a car.

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