About five years ago, we were on the C train coming back from getting dim sum with some friends who were visiting from out of town. We were toward the front of the train, and as we approached the 81st street stop we could hear some wierd chanting coming from the cars behind us. It sounded like “Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh”, and it was getting louder as the train started to slow. When we got off at the stop, and climbed the stairs up to the corner by 81st and Central Park, we realized what it was — a horde of people dressed in santa suits all chanting “HO HO HO”, who were now flooding off the train in droves.
It was frightening, if hilarious. Hundreds of people in santa suits, all in red, with one small group of “reindeer” holding up signs indicating that they were protesting working conditions at the North Pole. They just kept pouring out of the subway exits, hundreds of them, a sea of red, chanting “Ho Ho Ho” and herding toward the park.
I asked one of the Santas what was going on, and he explained that it was “Santacon,” a yearly “convention” of Santas that takes place in cities across the world, sort of a combination of flash mob and pub crawl that is scheduled each year by self-appointed (dis-)organizers who have created informational websites where you find out the where and when, download the dirty Santacon carol-book, and even now sign up for Twitter feeds so you can join the herd as Santa gets “on the move” from place to place in the city.
After seeing it that day. I was hooked. I’ve been at every Santacon since. If you’re going to do it, though, you need to follow the rules:
1. You ARE Santa
The most important thing to remember about Santacon is that it’s your chance to BE Santa. We’re all Santa. So you have to stop talking in the first person, as in “I am hungry.” Rather, it’s “Santa is hungry.” “Santa is thirsty.” When you greet people at Santacon, you don’t say, “hi,” you say “Hi Santa,” and they say “Hi Santa” back. It’s glorious.
