Outside its Christmas duties, Norad — jointly staffed by the Canadian and American militaries — is tasked with detecting aerospace threats to protect North America from air attacks.

Except Sears misprinted the phone number and accidentally gave out Col. Harry Shoup's secret hotline at the Continental Air Defense Command, today known as NORAD.

"Historical data and more than 60 years of NORAD tracking information lead us to believe Santa Claus is alive and well in the hearts of people throughout the world," the handbook advises.

"As soon as you're hanging up there's another kid wanting to talk to you," Preston Schlachter, NORAD's Track Santa program manager and its director of community outreach told Politico.

NORAD Tracks Santa's Facebook page shows what is happening live inside the operations center and has nearly two million likes, while its Twitter account has more than 150 thousand followers.