Inside NORAD’s holiday command: How the same team that tracks Santa guards North America

Deep inside a command center that monitors everything from Russian bombers to North Korean missile launches, a handful of service members are preparing for a very different kind of flight pattern — one led by a jolly man in a red suit.Each December, the North American Aerospace Defense Command — or NORAD — transforms part of its high-tech operations floor into a holiday command post dedicated to tracking Santa Claus. The same radar systems that protect North American airspace will soon be tuned to follow a sleigh moving at high speed from the North Pole.The Santa mission, now approaching its 7