U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama spent part of their family Christmas vacation in Hawaii thanking military men and their families stationed at the island's Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe Bay.

Aside from those in Hawaii, the president also called and thanked the other branches of the military assigned overseas for their service on Christmas Eve, CBS reports.

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Hawaii is special to the president because he spent a large part of his youth in this island-paradise with his grandparents.

It is the first family's sixth annual Christmas vacation since they lived in the White House. The morning was spent exchanging gifts and singing Christmas carols at their rented unit in Kailua.

Then they spent the rest of the day with friends at a secluded beach in Bellows Air Force Station in Waimanalo.

Also on Christmas Eve, the first lady participated in the yearly tradition of the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command to answer queries from children by phone to ask the location of Santa Claus. This yearly tradition, part of the NORAD Tracks Santa program, actually was accidental.

In 1955, a local newspaper gave by mistake the telephone number of the Continental Air Defense Command's Operation Center in Colorado Springs as the number where they could call Santa Claus. The officer who answered the call of a child didn't want to disappoint the tyke, so he gave the supposed location of Santa.

The program became part of NORAD when it was formed in 1958 and it tapped technology in 1998 by going digital. But warm human voices, like that of Michele Obama who spent about 30 minutes on the phone, remain the center of the program which has about 1,200 volunteers.

Tagschristmas, Obama, NORAD, Santa Claus