Santa has left his workshop in the North Pole with a sleigh full of toys and started his annual delivery to boys and girls around the world.

And thanks to the internet the bearded man of the moment is easier to track than ever.

A partial government shut down in the U.S. hasn’t stopped hundreds of volunteers at North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), a joint U.S.-Canadian operation based in Colorado Springs, Colo., from taking calls from children around the world who want to know when Santa will be coming.

The Norad Santa Tracker, is also up in running, showing a real time look at where old St. Nick is currently located. At the time of publishing, Santa had already delivered more than a billion gifts.

Now in its 63rd year, the Santa tracker became a Christmas Eve tradition after a mistaken phone call to the Continental Air Defence Command in 1955.

CONAD, as it was known, had the serious job of monitoring a radar network for any sign of a nuclear attack.

When Col. Harry Shoup picked up the phone that day, he found himself talking not to a military general, but to a child who wanted to speak to Santa Claus.

A Colorado Springs newspaper had run an ad inviting kids to call Santa but mistakenly listed the hotline number. Shoup figured out what had happened and played along.

Last year, Norad’s Santa tracking operation drew 126,000 phone calls, 18 million website hits, 1.8 million followers on Facebook and 179,000 more on Twitter.

But Norad warned that Santa will only stop by a house if everyone is asleep.

Online search giant Google also has also launched Santa tracker, mapping his progress and showing his upcoming stops online. 

Meanwhile, the Canadian government has revealed that Good Ol' Saint Nicholas lives in Canada, and pays taxes here.

"As is the longstanding view of the Canadian government and Canadians from coast to coast to coast, Santa and Mrs. Claus are Canadian citizens and reside in the North Pole," a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Ahmed Hussen said in an email to CTVNews.ca.

Transport Canada has also announced that minister Marc Garneau has cleared Santa for take-off, which will also see Mrs. Claus co-pilot this year.