Another reason I'm happy to be in New York City for the holidays: Santacon! I wanted to go last year, but unfortunately was tied up with finals and schoolwork. Not so this year!
For those of you who have never heard of Santacon - essentially, it is a 1 day event in NYC, free and open to the public. All that's required is that you dress up in some sort of holiday attire, preferably as Santa!
The event was actually started in 1994 in California! But has grown to cities across the states and even across the world!
Their website states that "
Santacon is a non-denominational, non-commercial, non-political and non-sensical Santa Claus convention that occurs once a year for absolutely no reason."
You better watch out:
Don ye now your gay apparel
Anyone caught attending Santacon without a FULL costume will be pelted with reindeer droppings and receive coal in their stocking.
Simply wearing a Santa hat is not acceptable.
Get creative! Santa loves gingerbread men, giant presents, Hannukah Harries, snowflakes, sugarplum fairies, frisky reindeer, toy soldiers, and Santa mash-ups. Try crossing Santa with your favorite animal, celebrity, concept or object and see what happens. A Santadacytl? Do it. Santaquarium? Why not. Running a Santathon? Bust out that fur-trimmed red tracksuit.
Leave Milk and Cookies
Santa gives back by donating to needy kids and families. Please bring at least two non-perishable items, and patronize the bars that have chosen to donate a portion of their Santacon proceeds to Toys for Tots.
Follow Rudolph’s Red Nose
Follow Santa’s Twitter and the helper Santa’s with the giant candy canes. You can text “follow santacon” to 40404 to have tweets sent as texts to your cell.
No Grinches or Scrooges allowed!
Unsafe, obnoxious, law-breaking Santas ruin Christmas. Learn how to not be THAT Santa. And every time you call Santacon a bar crawl, a sugarplum fairy dies.
Santa does not accept corporate sponsorship or speak to the press.
They didn't reveal the Saturday 10 am starting point until 9 pm on Friday night. We found out that on Saturday morning we'd be headed downtown near the World Trade Center Memorial, at the North Cove Marina, right on the Hudson, across from the Hyatt.
Lindsay and I had gone to Party City earlier in the week to buy a Santa suit, but they had been completely sold out! Luckily, Linds stopped by another store on Friday afternoon and managed to score 2 suits for us.
On Saturday morning one of Lindsay's friends from home, Christi, came in and we soon headed out! When we left the apartment at about 9:30, we ran into plenty of thrilled young kids who all pointed and yelled at their Santa sighting! Haha.
We didn't get more than 1/2 a block from my apartment before we started sighting other Santas headed downtown too. The subways were packed full and when we emerged on Wall Street, there were hordes of Santas all heading in the same direction.
Santas waiting at the Marina.
Luckily it was a perfect day out!
Linds and Christie.
We also met up with Liz!
Christi, who really was born on Christmas!
Santacon updated location via Twitter, which I followed on my phone. They also had people holding huge candy canes that you could follow. As soon as the first update was tweeted, Santas were on the move! We were led down into Battery Park, which was great because there were already tourists out and about. They had no idea what was going on!
From Battery Park, we headed up towards the South Street Seaport. Santacon isn't technically a pub crawl but Santas tend to stop in bars all along the way (and at most bars a donation from every drink bought goes towards Toys for Tots).
Linds and Christi walking uptown.
Coming into South Street Seaport!
Gingerbread Man trying to cross the street.
Look at all the Santas!!!
Literally thousands.
Santacon decided to stay at South Street Seaport a while. Santas were having fun getting lunch, jump roping, playing instruments, blowing bubbles, throwing glitter and doing other weird random things. It was so entertaining and a bit of a sensory overload!
It was also hilarious because tour buses drive right by the South Street Seaport. They must have been completely shocked to come up the street and see the entire pier covered with red Santas. Although I do feel a bit bad for the tourists trying to enjoy a peaceful afternoon on the water.
Another view of Santacon.
Looking out at the tree at South Street.
He's a famous photographer for the New York Times.
From the South Street Seaport, Santacon was on the move, heading uptown. We traveled up to Grand Central, but got there about an hour after the official Santacon crew was there. As you can see though, there were still a lot of Santas hanging around!
Santacon also went to Times Square and the New York Public library, but we decided to go back to the UES to end our Santacon adventure.
The crew.
All of us had other friends who were partaking in Santacon, but it was just impossible to meet up! With Santacon being on the move so often and everyone looking the same, we were lucky enough that we didn't lose each other.
Santacon was a great time! It was great to see Santas taking over the city and all the tourists (and locals) be entirely confused by all of the Santas (and reindeer, elves, trees, grinches, snowmen, etc).
On my walk home at about 4 pm I ran into a little girl and her mom. The girl saw me, stopped in her footsteps and yelled "look mom, it's Mrs. Claus!!!!"
Great ending to a fun event! Definitely looking forward to next year's Santacon.
