Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Christmas on Google Maps

The NORAD Santa Tracker
Google have again teamed up with NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, to bring you the NORAD Santa Tracker. Each year NORAD tracks Santa's gift-delivering journey from the North Pole to your chimney on both Google Maps and Google Earth. The Santa Tracker itself goes live on Christmas Eve.



In the meantime the official NORAD Tracks Santa website has a Christmas countdown and a number of Christmas themed games to keep you amused.

Coca Cola Christmas Lights

Coca Cola's Christmas map allows you to decorate your house on Google Maps with Christmas lights. See how I've tastefully decorated my pied-à-terre in London in the screenshot above.

Decorating your own house in this way is very easy. Enter your address in the search box and the map will centre on the satellite image of your home. You can then decorate your house with rope lights or choose from a number of pre-designed Christmas lights, like a reindeer, a star etc.

Once you have saved your Christmas decorations Coca Cola will send you a link to your house that you can then send to family or friends.

Shelter - Bling Your House
UK housing charity Shelter have created an amazing Street View site that lets you decorate your house with some Christmas bling. Once you enter your postcode and find your house you can choose from a number of Christmas decorations to give your house that Christmas glow.

I Feel Christmassy

If you live in London, New York or Toronto you can find some great things to do this Christmas by visiting I Feel Christmassy. Whether it is going ice skating at the Rockefeller Center in New York or visiting the famous Hamley's toy store in London this Google Maps mashup is a great way of finding and sharing fun things to do at Christmas.

Events and locations are shown on the map with a Christmas tree icon. If you know of a great Christmas event that is missing from the map you can even request an invite and add it to the map.

US Towns/Cities with holiday season names
There are apparently many places named Christmas and Santa Claus in the US. There even some towns named Rudolph, Antlers, Holly, Jolly and yes, even North Pole. This mashup will help you locate all of these places and more!

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1 comment:

Hampers said...

Nice blog with a very nice video on Christmas. Coca Cola Christmas Lights looks awesome. Enjoyed going through it.