Tracking Santa

North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, set new records in its annual Santa Claus tracking exercise. NORAD, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., received more than 100,000 phone calls, up from 80,000 last year. Facebook likes rose to nearly a million. Twitter followers jumped to 89,000. NORAD's Elf-Toss smart phone app logged 700,000 downloads. NORAD has been tracking Santa's yearly trek since 1955. Meanwhile, a National Science Foundation interview with one economist shows U.S. consumer Christmas spending ranks only 20th among nations.