Of all the magical elements of modern Christmas celebrations, Santa Claus’s mammoth journey to deliver presents to the world’s children in a single night is perhaps top of the list.

In a search for answers, inquisitive children have been making calls to the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) to establish the exact whereabouts of St Nicholas and his reindeer-led sleigh for close to 70 years.

The tradition began in 1955, when a child mistakenly rang a Colorado military command asking to speak to Father Christmas – after a local newspaper ran an advert by a department store containing a misprinted phone number.

Air Force Commander Harry Shoup, who was manning the phones that Christmas Eve, quickly realised the mistake and assured the child that he was in fact Santa Claus.

As more calls came in that night, Commander Shoup assigned a duty officer to continue answering the phone, birthing a tradition that passed over to Norad when it was formed in 1958.

Every year since, the agency – which defends and monitors the skies over North America – has fielded children’s questions about the red-and-white-clad chimney intruder and his unrivalled delivery schedule.

This year,…