How to Track Santa on Google This Year

You better watch out, you better not cry. You better click search, we’re telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town.

Google is offering many ways to track Santa this year — and everything is at your fingertips. When typing either “Santa” or “Christmas” into Google Search, you’ll see a spinning hat appear on the right side of the page that will take you to Santa’s Village — a fun virtual world featuring holiday characters, a countdown clock to the big day, and interactive activities.

On the days leading up to Christmas Eve, kids and adults alike can enjoy holiday-related activities while waiting for Santa to arrive. On the Santa’s Village website, users can watch animated videos of Santa’s adventures, make their own Santa selfies, create their own elves and igloos, solve puzzles and games, and even track Santa on Christmas Eve.

Fun fact: Santa’s journey actually lasts 25 hours, according to Google. He makes his first stop just after 10 p.m. local time in far eastern Russia, when it’s 5 a.m. in New York and 11 a.m. in Paris.

While the Santa tracker won’t be live until Dec. 24, you can still play a candy cane tilt game, fly an elf on a jetpack, take a penguin down a ski slope, search for Santa in a handful of different environments, read a story about Ollie the narwhal, jam with elves in an all-elf band, paint or draw color holiday characters, and enjoy many more fun activities.

If you have a Google Assistant, you can even request it to “call Santa” and get connected to one of the elves in his workshop, or say, “Hey Google, give me a Santa joke” to hear a few custom recorded jokes from Santa himself. On the big day, you can also ask your Google Assistant to find Santa by saying, “Hey Google, track Santa” or “Hey Google, where is Santa right now?”

For more information or to play some reindeer games before the holiday, visit the Santa’s Village website.

Andrea Romano is a freelance writer in New York City. Follow her on Twitter @theandrearomano.