The most interesting part of the site was the "Christmas Traditions around the World" section. It was there that I learned that some fascinating trivia.
The two most interesting tidbits were:
1. In Micronesia the most common gift is 2 bars of soap.
2. There is a country NAMED Micronesia!
I always thought Micronesia was the name for when you cook a large dinner, but forget to take one of the side dishes out of the microwave until all the guests leave.
Despite its cool address santa.com is one of the lamest Santa sites out there. The front page plugs tons of products, everything from Satellite radio to gold chains. Inside there is... I have no idea; it is a MEMBERS ONLY SITE. I didn't register.
Jumping over to santaland.com we find ANOTHER SITE trying to claim itself as the FIRST Santa site on the net. The thing that struck me most about this site was the photo of Santa, sitting with the most sinister looking elf I have ever seen.
Jeez, that guy gives me the creeps. He looks like he just tied Mrs. Claus to the train tracks and is ready to start twirling his mustache.
My favorite Santa site is noradsanta.com. This is the governmental organization that is responsible for the aerospace defense of the United States and Canada. They have been using 'radar' to track Santa since the fifties.
Interestingly, their involvement with Santa started as an accident, when the Norad (then Conad) started receiving calls for Santa due to a typo on a department store flyer. The agents on duty presumably bored watching the sky on Christmas Eve, started checking radar for Santa and updating callers as to his local.
They have a well put together site that features 'declassified' photos of Santa. The most recent is of Santa hanging out with Aaron Carter.
Too bad Aaron wasn't hanging out with Santaland's evil elf. THAT would have been cool.
There are plenty of celebrities involved with noradsanta.com. They have many celebrity Santa trackers including Clifford the Big Red Dog, Erik Estrada and the woman who played Mrs. Cunningham on Happy Days.
My favorite celebrity tracker is Hollywood's own Johnny Grant. Johnny appears in a 30 second spot on the website where he praises Norad for their tracking of bad guys and particularly their tracking of a good guy, Santa Claus.
If the evil elf is on the sleigh, they might be doing both.
In closing, I have not even scratched the surface. There are literally THOUSANDS of Santa Claus sites on the web, but rather than alienate EVERYONE reading by becoming bunchosantawebsitereviews.com, we must move on to other junk.
Don't forget to check out:
Santa on the Web Part 3
Santa on the Web Part 2
Santa on the Web Part 1
This series reminded me of Nova on PBS. It also reminded me of why I hate Nova!
ReplyDeleteJust Kidding
-KATZ