Google's Santa Tracker lets you play games and learn coding as you count down to Christmas

Google Santa Tracker happens to be an annual Christmas-themed entertainment event online organised by Google. The objective of this event is to track Santa online before Christmas Eve but before that, little activities are added at the start of December to keep the audience engaged. The US North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Google have pooled in resources this year and started Santa tracker websites on 1 December in anticipation of the event. [caption id=“attachment_5668511” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Santa’s Village.[/caption] Amongst the many things adding up to the hype of Santa Tracker is Santa’s Village. In its 15th year this time, Google is doing something different for Santa’s Village. While in the earlier years, Santa’s Village would unlock new adventures daily as we approached Christmas eve, this time around Google has unlocked most of the adventures. These adventures include puzzles to create artwork, test your geography skills and learn about global traditions during Christmas. Here are some of the current Santa themed games/puzzles on the website along with other interactive activities. Teachers can even download lesson plans with video guides to help teach their students Elf Maker [caption id=“attachment_5668641” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Elf maker[/caption] Elf maker is a game where you can make your own elf using different skin tones, clothes, hats and also change the environment around the elf. You can then take a picture and then choose to save it on your device or share with other people on social media. Wrap Bottle [caption id=“attachment_5668701” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Wrap a bottle.[/caption] This game has a music-based theme wherein the player sees a set of arrows keys moving upwards and they have to press the correct arrow key on the keyboard, as they approach the circles, to get a high score. Get a good enough score and you will progress on to a higher level. Present Drop [caption id=“attachment_5668651” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Present Drop.[/caption] Present Drop is a game in which the player has to drop a gift from the top into the sack of the elves at the correct time using the spacebar key. Map Quiz [caption id=“attachment_5668731” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Map Quiz.[/caption] As the name suggests, this is a quiz which tests your geographical knowledge and shows you the outlines of countries which you must place at the correct spot on the world map. Reindeer Runner [caption id=“attachment_5668741” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Reindeer Runner[/caption] This game is just like Temple Run, but instead of a guy running from a blood-thirsty hoard of gorillas, we see an elf riding a reindeer. Just hit the spacebar key to jump and collect points while running. Code Lab [caption id=“attachment_5668771” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Code Lab[/caption] This is a fun program which lets you solve puzzles and use your analytical skills to solve problems. It doesn’t technically involve coding but uses the same principle of creating an algorithm to get tasks done. Holiday traditions [caption id=“attachment_5668781” align=“alignnone” width=“800”] Holiday traditions[/caption] This is another learning app on the website which tells you about the various Christmas traditions that are followed across the world during the Christmas time period. Go ahead and explore Santa’s Village for yourself. There are 25 adventures to play around with.