Smart phone app encourages children to go to sleep earlier on Christmas Eve

By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH
The Kansas City Star

’Twas the night before Christmas

The kids need to nap

How to get them to bed early?

Well, now there’s an app!

It was a whirlwind idea, conceived just before Thanksgiving, when KMBC-TV weatherman Bryan Busby was talking with friends about Christmas Eve forecasting duties.

The radar blip documenting Santa’s journey via the military’s NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is one of the most watched weather segments for the 10 and younger demographic. A mother told Busby how it was a tradition every year to watch it with her children because it made them race to bed, fearful that Santa might skip their house. She just wished it would come earlier than the 10 p.m. news broadcast.

Maybe, with Santa’s help, I could make an app for that, thought Busby.

Although there are plenty of holiday apps available via the Internet, this one is among the first in which a weatherman teamed up with Santa to encourage children to go to sleep earlier on the most sleepless night of the year.

Busby asked Santa, and Santa liked the idea a lot.

A few phone calls later, a couple of video shoots — including a special KringleKam mounted on the dashboard of Santa’s sleigh — and now it’s available to help exhausted parents experience, perhaps, a silent night on Christmas Eve.

Tapping into Busby’s weather radar skills, along with Santa and his elves’ computer technologies, parents can get two updates on Santa’s progress. The phone updates will come at the time convenient to parents (and their children’s bedtimes).

The first “live” video is from Busby inside the television studio, showing Santa’s progress on radar. A half hour later, a very frantic Busby tells children there isn’t much time left. This video cuts “live” to Santa flying on his sleigh in a holding pattern because some children are still apparently awake.

The phone app costs $4.99, with the proceeds going to Operation Breakthrough, Missouri’s largest day care, which welcomes 600 needy children a day through its doors.

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On the Web
For more information on how to get the app, go to www.santamessenger.com.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/21/2536213/smart-phone-app-encourages-children.html