Santa Claus, snug in his cherry-red sleigh and trailing nine reindeer, was soaring through the night sky over Madagascar early Tuesday afternoon Eastern Standard Time — at least according to a Santa Tracker from the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

The command, known as NORAD, a defense organization operated jointly by the United States and Canada, has traced Santa’s magical journey around the world for more than six decades.

Its modern-day service, including an online visual that shows Saint Nicholas and his reindeer powering across a three-dimensional world map, is viewable here. The online tracker has a running count of Santa’s gift deliveries. NORAD is also taking calls at a telephone hotline: 1-877-446-6723. The command warned on Tuesday that some callers were receiving messages that they could not be connected, but it urged anxious Santa trackers to stay on the phone. “Don’t hang up — those sleigh bells will ring, and we’ll answer you soon,” NORAD wrote on social media.

This year, Santa departed the North Pole at 6 a.m. E.S.T., the command said. The tracker is scheduled to shut down at 2 a.m. Christmas morning.

“Santa has just departed from the North Pole and is currently headed toward Chatham Island off of the coast of New Zealand,” Capt. Sable Brown of the defense command said in an early-morning radio update. She cited “NORAD satellites and Santa Cam footage.”

NORAD, typically tasked with defending North American airspace from foreign threats, has tracked Santa’s Christmas Eve journey since the command was established in 1958.