2021 Santa Tracker Time Lapse - NORAD + Google Santa Trackers

Here it is! My official Santa Tracker time lapse for 2021. This took 30 hours to record, 30 hours to compress, and a few hours to edit.

Here are some timestamps to note
The times are in US Eastern time, or UTC-5 (Do not click on the link timestamps)

At 4:00 AM, the countdown for Norad expires, and pretracking begins. The Google countdown has 1 hour left on it.

At 5:00 AM, the Google tracker countdown expired, and Google's Santa took off. Norad's Santa still has 1 hour until takeoff

At 6:00 AM, Norad Santa took off. Google's Santa was already in New Zealand at the time.

At 3:03 PM, Norad Santa reached the Pyramids of Egypt, and had delivered nearly 3 billion gifts, more than the population of Africa. Google Santa was in Finland at the time.

At 3:40 PM, Norad Santa visited the International Space Station while delivering to Southern Africa. Google's Santa was in Turkey at the time.

At 3:55 PM, the Google tracker said Santa would arrive in 12 hours. The time was 1:55 PM in my location.

At 5:29 PM, Norad Santa reached Paris, France.

At 6:17 PM, Google Santa hit 5 billion gifts. Norad's present count was at a little over 4 billion.

At 6:32 PM, Google Santa reached Paris. Meanwhile, Norad Santa was in Western Africa.

At 6:42 PM, Norad Santa reached London, England, marking the halfway point of his journey.

At 8:25 PM, Google Santa reached London, England.

At 9:07 PM, Norad Santa hit 5 billion gifts. Google's present count was already around 5.7 billion.

At 10:09 PM, Norad Santa reached Fort Lauderdale, Florida - The first stop in the United States.

At 11:14 PM, Google Santa reached Orlando, Florida.

At 1:37 AM, Norad Santa made his first stop in my home state, Utah. The time at my location was 11:37 PM. Google Santa was in Iowa at the time.

At 2:13 AM, Norad Santa made his closest stop to my house. The stop was in Ogden, Utah. The time at my location was 12:13 AM. Google Santa was in Nebraska at the time.

At 2:40 AM, the arrival statistic on the Google tracker changed to say "Santa will arrive soon". This is likely a warning for kids that they really should be in bed by now, but I was already in bed, since it was 12:40 AM at the time. Google Santa was heading for Mexico, and Norad Santa was in California.

At 4:00 AM, the arrival statistic on the Google tracker changed into a distance traveled statistic, likely implying that Santa had already arrived at my location. But this was after he had just left his stop in Idaho, and I don't live in Idaho. Like I said, I live in Utah, which, ironically, he visited 10 minutes later. Norad Santa was heading to Hawaii at the time.

At 4:10 AM, Google Santa reached Salt Lake City, Utah - The closest stop to my location

At 5:03 AM, Norad Santa finished his journey, delivering 7,623,693,263 gifts. Google Santa was in British Columbia at the time.

At 6:00 AM, Google Santa finished his journey, delivering 7,700,000,000 gifts. The recording would continue until around 9 AM Eastern Time, or 7 AM in my time zone.


Some things to note
The Live Feed on the Google tracker has animated pictures again, unlike last year where they were just static images

The final present count for the Google tracker is the same as last year. It's actually been like that every year since 2018.

The final present count for the Norad tracker actually went down. It was 7,623,693,263 this year, and 7,623,695,221 last year, meaning it went down by 1,958.

Norad Santa had no stops in Afghanistan. This also resulted in the Afghanistan Santa Cam video being cut.
Norad Santa also didn't have any stops in North Korea or Belarus.
Also, one of Norad's stops counted Vanuatu as a city (which it isn't, Vanuatu is a country)

Norad Santa had two new Santa Cam videos this year, likely to make up for the removal of the Afghanistan video. The two new Santa cams were for Dubai and Seattle.

The journey for the Google tracker lasted the longest out of the two, lasting 25 hours, from 10 AM GMT on Christmas Eve to 11 AM GMT on Christmas Day

The Norad tracker lasted 23 hours, from 11 AM GMT on Christmas Eve to 10 AM GMT on Christmas Day

Raw recording size: 13 GB
Raw recording length: 30 hours, 7 minutes, 26 seconds (30:07:26)

Songs used:
00:00 Music of Four's 3D Hand - Jacknjellify
00:56 Wish Background - Kevin Macleod
02:49 This is BFB (Instrumental) - Jacknjellify
06:55 Pac-Man Arrangement - World 1
08:54 Metal Black - Dual Moon
11:30 G.Darius - G-Zero
14:37 Sleigh Ride - idk where i got the midi from
15:29 Jingle Bells - I made this one lol, it sucks, i know
17:54 Go Cart - Kevin Macleod
21:24 Bit Shift - Kevin Macleod
24:34 Christmas Rap - Kevin Macleod
27:37 Flying Kerfuffle - Kevin Macleod
31:40 New Friendly - Kevin Macleod
34:22 Derp Nugget - Kevin Macleod
37:03 Newer Wave - Kevin Macleod
39:50 Wagon Wheel (Electronic) - Kevin Macleod
44:52 Bleeping Demo - Kevin Macleod
48:22 NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A - Deltarune Chapter 2
49:29 Island Meet and Greet - Kevin Macleod