Garcia Media Life

Photo courtesy of nycsantacon.com

So I was riding the subway from Penn station to Columbus Circle Saturday night, when I noticed an inordinate number of Santa Clauses on the train.  The ratio was truly outrageous.  I mean one Santa for every two people in the car?  And there were Mrs. Santa’s too.  Rather attractive ones that would make the North Pole a more pleasant home address than you might ordinarily expect.   What the?

Silly me.  I had just run into Santacon 2009 in New York City; combination flash-mob, good-cheer, pub crawl that had started at 10am at five different points in the city.  I ran into my Santas at about 9pm and they didn’t look that bad having been 11 hours into the celebration.

NYCSantaConn can explain it much better than I.  If you’re at all prudish, don’t go there.  This Santa stuff is profane and serious business.

Santa’s Rules:  

 Santa looks like Santa. HOLIDAY APPAREL IS MANDATORY. A Santa hat is not enough. Get a Santa suit. Buy a Santa suit. Make a Santa suit. Steal a Santa suit. Get creative: be a Secret Santa, a Santasaurus, Candy-cane, a Reindeer, a Chanukah Chicken, a goddamn latke, Stewardess Santa, Knight Rider Santa, Crusty Peace Punk Santa, the occasional Legless Reindeer, Chanukah Squirrel, Emo-Elf, or the Santichrist.
Just don’t wear your f——g jeans.

Santa acts like Santa. Be jolly. Belly-laugh. Let people sit on your lap. Give out gifts.
Santa loves reindeer games, stripper poles and creatively concealed guzzle-ables.

Santa doesn’t seek media attention. “Ho-ho-ho” is good. “Publicity ho” is lame.

Santa doesn’t get arrested. 

Helpful guidelines include making sure to eat something, stay hydrated, exercise intelligent pacing, bring a metro card, pay the bar tab, tip the bartenders, stay with your group and don’t make children cry.  And my personal favorite:

 Don’t be “that” Santa.  

 Your friends want to have fun, not scrape the puke outta your beard or prevent your wasted ass from wandering into traffic.

The origins trace back to 1994 in San Francisco.  The Santa bender that was most crazily out of control occurred four years ago in Aukland, New Zealand.  Looting, bottle-throwing and several assaults ensued.

There were no such incidents in New York Saturday night.  In fact, organizers were encouraging folks to bring a couple of cans of food to donate to homeless shelters.  They got a thousand pounds worth of food last year and were shooting for an even ton this year.

Other than the ones hanging out at the Salvation Army kettles, I expect to see my next Santa around midnight, December 25^th.   Just in case the old Santa is gone and has been replaced by the new Santa, along with the milk and cookies, I’m also leaving several shots of Grey Goose.