#santa tracker showdown 2023

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Uhhhh hey Fusible Santa, it looks like you're missing a spot, buddy. A pretty big spot, buddy. Like, well over half of a whole continent big, buddy,

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Good morning! Today's the Big Day, where all Santas across the world have completed their mission. Let's see how everyone turned out!

From "me briefly waking up at 3am," I saw that The Santa was the first to finish. Sadly, statistics were wiped from the website not too long after, so we can't tell how many houses he visited, cookies he ate, or glasses of milk he drank.

Of the remaining three, Fusible Santa acted as expected: worst present output, but best coverage. Granted, getting better coverage than the rest isn't exactly the trickiest task, but man is the bar low here. Despite this, somehow he managed to shoot his counts up to 3.14 billion presents and 410,365 cookies eaten.

Against all odds, Google Santa actually came in second place this year! Despite having an all-around more competent website, Google Santa delivered 7.7 billion presents exactly, same as last time. Is Google Santa stagnating...?

NORAD Santa, despite a second place finish last time, decided to put himself into gear and deliver a staggering 7,883,693,263 presents, actually beating out Google this time! Despite a generally less functional website, is NORAD ready to take back the crown...?

And that wraps up the Santa Tracker Showdown this year! Who knows if I'll be back for 2024. Santa Trackers only come around once a year, and perhaps so shall I. Hopefully that's long enough for me to figure out how to spice things up better next time.

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What do we make of Santa being stopped by the police in this particular Google Santa Tracker Live Feed image? Is Santa not above the law? Do you need a license to fly a reindeer-powered sleigh? Google Santa just hit 3 billion by the way

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Welcome to the first ever second ever Santa Tracker Showdown! (The first one was held on Twitter in 2021.) Every Christmas Eve, numerous Santa Trackers try to track Santa, but none of them track quite the same one. Which Santa is the best Santa? That's for us to find out.

THE CONTESTANTS

This year, we're coming out the gate with FOUR contestants, possibly more given enough time!

NORAD Santa Tracker - From my knowledge, this is the Original Santa Tracker, and the one I grew up with. Once the best in show, NORAD has floundered in recent years, making an experience heavily unoptimized for desktop, and failing to deliver as many presents as Google. Is this the year NORAD makes a comeback? The skinny vertical website frame that just popped up for me indicates "No."

Google Santa Tracker - The most polished of the Santa Trackers, which probably makes it the best one, but also the least interesting. If you're looking for a high-quality Santa Tracking experience, this is probably your best bet, but half the fun of Santa Trackers in the year of our lord 2023 is how little any of them work.

The Santa Tracker - Take this one for example. The breakout star of last time. The Santa Tracker plays by no consistent rules, has an website that barely works on any platform, and if this year is telling anything right out the gate, this hasn't changed at all. Despite barely working, it still insists it is The Santa Tracker, and in our hearts, it very well may be.

NEW! Santa Tracker - Just Santa Tracker. This is the new contestant in the ring, so I have yet to figure out what its style is. It seems to be made by Fusible, so maybe it's more proper to call it "Fusible Santa Tracker". I wait with bated breath to see it in action.

There's also a Santa Tracker for the Nintendo Switch that costs three dollars, but I am not sure if I am committed enough to the bit to buy it. Yet. If I buy it, I'm expecting a premium Santa Tracking experience.

That's about all we need for the introduction. Sit down with a glass of milk and tray of cookies, and may the best Santa Tracker win.

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I haven't paid too much mind to the temperature marker on The Santa Tracker, but I saw it said it's "hot" in Tuva, Russia, and I just decided to check. The temperature's in the negatives over there.

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Meanwhile, The Santa Tracker is headed for "Papa New Guinea".

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The city of Townsville...

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NORAD Santa is the first to cross the 1,000,000,000 threshold! Congratulations! That being said, Google is starting to catch up, being over halfway there and closing in on China pretty soon. (Remember! Google Santa's present distribution is based on the population of the locations he visits!)

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I like these LIVE Santa Tracker Cams from The Santa Tracker. Make sure you don't miss him! I hear Santa is very fast...

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As a last hurrah, The Santa Tracker's official Twitter account just posted a bunch of tweets at once that were definitely supposed to be scheduled for across the night.

Glad The Santa Tracker managed to find ways to be dysfunctional even after finishing tracking Santa.

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What do you MEAN the wind is coming from NV? Northvest? Nevada???

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We're reaching the part of the Santa Trackers where Santa makes exactly One stop in each country before moving onto the next. This is what I meant when I brought up the Eurocentrism earlier -- I swear, last time I did this I could count on my fingers the number of countries in Africa any given Santa made more than one stop in. Sadly, it appears this hasn't changed in the past two years.

That being said, this time we do have the Fusible Santa Tracker, which has definitely been much more thorough than the other Santa Trackers we've looked out before. That being said, as a consequence of being so much more thorough, Fusible is also much, much further behind, which is to say it's still working through India.

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Fusible Santa has used his teleportation powers to go straight from Basra, Iraq, to Nairobi, Kenya. On most Santas, I'd question this routing, but on a Santa that can teleport, I'll allow it.

That being said, this does not leave me optimistic for Fusible's coverage of Africa.

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One of my favorite parts of The Santa Tracker is that they have a button for Frequently Asked Questions, but it just leads right back to the page for the tracker without providing any answers.

They DO have a FAQ, the link just doesn't work.

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I get the impression that going straight from Tanzania to Ukraine isn't good routing, but I'm not The Santa, so what do I know?

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I don't know why I'm doing this guys