SantaCon, explained

Christmas Eve is just around the corner, but Santa’s already been out and about — in fact, there have been thousands of them.

That’s the legacy of SantaCon, the mid-December event that features tens of thousands of Santas parading the streets, being jolly, and generally sullying the reputation of the North Pole. As we mop up Santa’s holiday cheer, it’s a good time to reflect on the event’s meaning.

It turns out that SantaCon is more fascinating than just another bar crawl, as the above video shows. It’s an event whose purpose is constantly changing, thanks in part to its surprising origins.

SantaCon is a roving, loosely organized event where people dressed like Santa Claus, elves, or other holiday figures and parade around a city in varying states of sobriety. Comparable to other adult party days, like St. Patrick’s Day or Halloween, it’s not organized by one particular group, though there is occasionally a dominant organization in a city (with varying degrees of cooperation with local businesses).

SantaCon New York, the largest event, defines itself as a “charitable, non-commercial, non-political, nonsensical Santa Claus convention that happens once a year for absolutely no reason.” That definition, which mixes a flash mob sensibility with holiday celebration, is common to most of the SantaCons around the world (albeit with different names and local flavors).

To critics, however, Santa Con isn’t just a benign holiday sleigh ride. As Jason O. Gilbert wrote in a strongly worded New York Times Op-Ed: “For those living in peaceful oblivion, SantaCon is an annual tradition in which revelers dress up as Kriss Kringle (or, at least, put on a Santa hat) and participate en masse in an often literal bar crawl, cramming 12 nights of Christmas boozing into a single afternoon.”

For those only familiar with SantaCon through the drink specials, its origin is especially surprising: you have to go back to Denmark in the 1970s.

That’s because the first SantaCon was actually a performance art protest, where Santas prioritized politics over revelry.

In a 1977 article for Mother Jones, Ellen Frank told the story (this article is a part of SantaCon’s history as well — more on that later). In her article, Frank described the efforts of a Danish art collective named Solvognen, which took their name from a relic of Norse mythology.

Many members of the group lived in Christiania, a semi-autonomous “state” within the city of Copenhagen. The anarchists who lived there (these anarchists were non-violent — think more hippie than punk) were critical of the inequality they believed existed in Danish society, and those conditions had been exacerbated by the oil crisis. That catalyzed Solvognen’s famous Santa art project in 1974.

That year, about 75 Santas enacted a parable in Copenhagen. The premise? With each passing day, the troop of Santas learned a little bit more about the consumerism and greed they believed had taken over Christmas. The demonstrations were charming, funny, and occasionally violent. On the first day, they caroled with an angel; by the event’s conclusion, they were attacking buildings with pick axes and handing out free presents in a local department store.

The event (and miraculous footage of Santas being beaten and arrested) made the performance iconic. Arrests were minimal and Danes came to venerate the performance — Julemandshæren (Santa Claus army) was later added to Denmark’s Culture Canon, which commemorates key works of art in the country’s history.

Solvognen performed different pieces each year — as one cofounder told Frank, “We only have one rule — never do anything twice.” But while the Danish Santas didn’t storm Copenhagen the next year, they did inspire SantaCon as it exists today.

Santarchy provides the origin story for SantaCon in America.

Gary Warne, founder of the San Francisco Suicide Club (a “secret society” that explored the city and pulled pranks), was inspired by that Mother Jones article about Solvognen. Though Warne died before his group could cary out a reenactment, a similar group called the San Francisco Cacophony Society did in 1994.

The first event involved some of the prankish antics of Solvognen, albeit with a little more improvisation. One of the Santas was “hung” (using a noose with a harness), but the event was more about pleasant absurdity than political criticism (or binge drinking). The Santas wandered around the city, snuck into parties, and spread some holiday chaos. Though the group initially thought it would be a one time performance, they couldn’t resist the temptation to don their holiday suits again.

The second year, the event escalated and had already become rowdier. By this time, it had adopted the name “Santarchy” and, as importantly, firmly established a new incarnation of Santa: jolly agent of chaos, frequently found in mobs.

In 1996, Portland’s Cacophony society hosted a SantaCon with the help of the San Francisco crew. Santa was on the move.

Santas like author Scott Beale, among others, helped train Santas around the country in the art of producing their own SantaCon events (occasionally called Santarchy, SantaCon, or Santapalooza). The event rapidly grew in various alternative scenes, and as it grew, some of the original absurd anarchy was drowned in beer.

By 2000, SantaCons were international and included events that were explicitly called pub crawls. That represented an evolution that’s continued until today, when the event is primarily associated with St. Patrick’s Day-style drinking.

SantaCon New York requests a cash donation, but because SantaCon is often, by definition, an unorganized event, it’s not a requirement of participation.

Other SantaCons, however, might have more organized charitable attempts. In Kalamazoo, Michigan, for example, SantaCon is a more structured bar crawl, which allows organizers to raise money for charity through the SantaCon venues (though with many of these SantaCons, the full details of the financial relationships are private).

So the short answer is: it depends. But SantaCon’s probably not best characterized as a charitable event.

SantaCon 2015 in New York recorded 5 arrests. For a day of heavy drinking with thousands of fun-loving participants, that’s not a particularly violent event.

However, many have come to view SantaCon as a nuisance. Outlets published the SantaCon official bar list as a list of bars to avoid, and Twitter users complaining about the drunken Santas:

Whether you think SantaCon ruins Santa, and life in general, may depend on the Santas you meet and whether you experience holiday cheer or holiday public urination.

Vox’s Santa-bearded reporters interviewed a few dozen Santa-con participants at the 2015 event’s kickoff. Only one was familiar with the event’s San Francisco origins, and none knew about the Danish group that first sent a wave of Santas into the street.

But the interviewees also declined to mention partying and hard drinking as their reason for dressing up as Santa. Most cited holiday spirit, a festive environment, and the fun of dressing up as their reason for participating. While partying is doubtless part of the allure, it’s not the only appeal of the event.

SantaCon’s long lost the protest art purpose of its 1974 performance, and time has depleted the anarchic spirit of its early years. Due to cultural amnesia and simply being too well-known to be absurd, SantaCon’s become a mainstream event with its own unique meaning.

And even that meaning is always changing. Vox’s Santas met people dressed as elves, Superman, and Jesus. One man told Vox that he’d bought a thousand candy canes to give out to SantaCon participants, and his trip to New York was part of a nation-wide tour he was taking after his divorce. That’s something a group of Danish anarchists probably never would have expected — but they might not have minded it, either.

But if that doesn’t warm your heart, you can still watch Santas get beat up by the cops. You can see that above, or on our YouTube channel.