I'm not a huge Christmas person, but every year since the birth of the Princess we have followed along on the NORAD site, which was not nearly as entertaining on 56K dial-up as it is today. I suppose with the chance of Soviet Tupolevs coming over the polar icecap any second becoming pretty much non-existent they have more time to devote to this, but I would think that the NRO, (if it still exists) and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency would have to contribute optical imagery.
The Soviets did have plans, if not actually fly, a 2-man earth orbiter "lab" fitted with film cameras for surveillance purposes. It was also to be fitted with a cannon to destroy other satellites, though I don't think that was ever installed. I have no idea what lighting off a cannon attached to your spacecraft fitted with state of the art combloc flight systems would do to your orbital dynamics, but I'll bet the line for volunteer test pilots was pretty short. But theoretically at least, the Godless Commies would have been able to murder Santa from space.
Tracking “Big Red”: NORAD’s Secret Santa Mission « Government Book Talk
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