Google Santa Tracker is here: how to follow live (Update: in New Zealand)

The Santa Tracker from Google is back for 2020 - and he's now well on the way, having delivered over 35 million presents already.

We confirmed earlier this morning that he had departed the North Pole at 10AM GMT / 5AM ET / 2AM PT and is currently sailing around the globe at breakneck speed to give out gifts to all those who've done enough to deserve them this year.  

(Although we've heard that he's being far more lenient this year because, you know, 2020 has been a bit of a rough one - as referenced by the fact that Father Christmas and Mrs Christmas are wearing face masks on the Santa Tracker. We would have thought they'd be in a bubble to be honest).

Santa's village is also now open for business, with a whole host of mini-games, videos and activities to play - bookmark this page as we'll be running through the key ones for you to get involved with, whether you're entertaining little ones or not.

The key thing to do - as he's on the way, looking to deliver presents to the Oceania region of the world - is to jump to Santatracker.google.com to see where he's at (currently, the sleigh is being prepared for final checks with all those presents). 

It works on both desktop and mobile pretty well, and a tap of the menu in the top left-hand corner will give you access to all the lovely things you can do this year... just don't have your sound up too loud as it rather blares out of the Santa Tracker.

We're hard at work testing the games that are being offered in the Santa Tracker - don't say we're not a properly researching site.

Quick Draw

“It is amazing! You get so much fun because they say what you have to draw and then you have to try and draw it. “

This is from the child’s review - the premise is a robot is using machine learning to work out what’s being drawn in pen. It’s actually rather fun, although getting it to recognise things like ‘Candy’ is a little tricky. Stupid robot.

Hang on, is this us helping Google’s machine learning get smarter? This is the description: 

“Tensor is Santa's Machine Learning robot that helps him quickly decipher the letters he receives from children all over the world. To help Tensor practice, draw a picture of each holiday word on the screen and it will tell you what it sees. The more you draw, the smarter Tensor will get, so let's help Santa be more efficient than ever this holiday season!”

Hmmm…

Snowball Storm

This Battle Royale-style game sees you slinging your way around a forest, dodging behind trees and grabbing power-ups in the shape of presents. It's infuriating and slightly addictive - you need to master the tap (or click) to really make your way through it. 

Memory Match

A basic matching of symbols behind Christmas doors, it starts easy then the timer starts to tick down... we went from scorn to annoyance at how hard it became before figuring out there was a pattern.

Santa Search

This is Where's Waldo (or Where's Wally, to the UK dwellers) on an interactive scale - an annoyingly diverting title.

Present Bounce

Bounce the presents into the right hole by putting the building blocks in the right place - another one where our 'research' took us down a rabbit hole we didn't expect...

The site has been live throughout December for parents and teachers alike to help their children be entertained while learning at the same time - this allows children to learn how to speak other languages with simple Christmas phrases, or to code by making elves dance or

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