Santa flying over UK on Christmas Eve - it's magical!

[kathrunneth]

This is probably one of the best things I did with my kids last Christmas and it's easy and free!

Santa's sleigh will be flying over the UK on Christmas Eve - visible in many places but I think sadly not Scotland. It flies over London at about 5.21/5.22pm, and there's an online tracker so you can see when it will be near you if you aren't London-based.

Last year, it took only a couple of minutes to fly over so we were lucky to be looking for it at the right time. It was a bright, strong light - and very clearly different to the usual planes, satellites, stars, etc. My DS was amazed and I have to say I though it was pretty wonderful too. Am looking forward to my DD being able to take part this year, now she's old enough to understand it.

Google 'International Space Station' for more details.

[traviata]

Thanks for the reminder.

Table here for London.

It looks as though it will be very low in the sky on 24 Dec, so not all that easy to see, but still fab if it's a clear evening.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

5.21pm London (it'll be dark and hopefully clearish)

I noticed it also zooms by on Christmas Day too. How d'you explain that to eagle eyed DC?

[DropYourSword]

He's checking that he didn't miss anyone!!

[CastaDiva]

Hmm, you may be discounting the interest of small children in the space station, OP! My three-year-old has already been out spotting it with his pre-school and his childminder's gang, and has been watching Tim Peake doing no-gravity somersaults on the news, so if I suddenly tried to convince him the same moving light was Santa's sleigh, I'd be getting one of those withering pre-schooler, 'No, you're wrong, Mummy' looks...

[Martha70]

We live in Manchester,have watched it last year,it was soo huge,absolutly massive!!We vere amazed how big the whole ship was,lots and lots of lights!!!

[SitsOnFence]

Ha ha CastaDiva we did it last year, hoping that the Christmas spirit would override logic, but youngest DC piped up "it looks just like the space station Mummy!" In the end they concluded that we probably missed Father Christmas as we were distracted by ISS!!

[SitsOnFence]

I should add that we will be doing it again this year as, ISS or not, we all had such fun staring up and trying to work out what was a plane, what was a space station and what just might be a reindeer-pulled sleigh!

[traviata]

Curses, we missed it.

I got the DC out, we went down to the beach for a clear sky, but DD insisted on taking the dog which slowed us down. My ISS tracker says it went over a couple of minutes earlier than we'd expected.

[ChristmasZombie]

We saw it! Absolutely delightful! We got home from church and headed straight into the back garden, and spotted it straight away. Lucky timing, I think!