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Google and NORAD have been working together for years to show kids each year where Santa is in the sky on Christmas eve, but this year NORAD decided Bing was the better map source for that information. Not wanting to disappoint the good boys and girls of the world, Google upped their game and released a massive new Santa tracker with tons of features.

Over the past few years, Google has had several small features that are available during Christmas. The Santa Tracker last year was matched with an Android app, and the ability to setup a call for children using Google Voice was setup for anyone to who wanted to surprise a little one. This year it seems Google has decided to dedicate some additional resources to their holiday offerings, releasing a website and app that promises to capture the eyes of children of all ages. In other words, their holiday-themed search results were only the beginning

The new Santa Tracker website is a brilliant HTML5 website with several mini-games, the resurrection of the Santa phone call service, an animated village to explore that has hidden buttons to press all over, and of course a countdown to the actual tracking of Santa. This year Google promises more than just an animated sleigh on Google Maps, but instead a view of Santa’s dashboard. According to the website, the latest and greatest in Google Maps technology will be used to allow everyone to follow Santa around the world and learn a thing or two while you do.

Naturally, there’s no shortage of Google+ integration. Santa’s call service is only available between 8AM and 9PM, but Santa will send shout outs (to whomever you ask) on Google+ all day long.

Each mini-game allows you to share your scores with your friends, and the bottom left hand corner of the website floats a share function for all of the social networks. This floating menu also allows you to quickly jump between all of the activities on the website.

The app that goes with this year’s Santa tracking isn’t quite as functional as the website, but will give you plenty to do on the night. For now, the app just shows you the animated scroll of Santa’s village. None of the icons that launch the mini-games do anything, including the call Santa tool. On Christmas Eve, the app will follow Santa around the globe as he hovers just above Google Maps and delivers presents to the world. Santa will zoom through cities rendered in Google’s 3D maps and allow users to pan around and see what he’s up to.

In many ways this is a huge step up for Google, despite the lack of support from NORAD this year. The official statement from NTS made it sound like the two companies broke up, stating that they mutually agreed to go in new directions. Google is clearly the better of the Santa Tracker services out there, despite the mildly disturbing notion that tracking old Saint Nick is now a competitive market.