Why did Santa start partying so hard? This is SantaCon in New York City.
In cities around the world people gather to dress up like Santa and get fantastically
jolly (that is, really drunk). It’s where our intrepid Santa reporters
learned “the whole Slip ‘N’ Slide was covered
with eggnog.” But how did SantaCon become SantaCon?
“I don’t care what it is, it’s just drinking and having a good time.”
But what if it started way before you thought, and in a really weird way?
“Just out of curiosity, when did it all begin?”
Thank you for asking! Like all great stories, SantaCon’s begins in an abandoned military
base in Denmark. Here, in 1971, squatters claimed 84 acres
they called it “Freetown Christiania.” And that unusual free state inside Copenhagen
was the North Pole for the first group of Santas.
They were a theatre group, established in 1969,
and they went by the name of... “Solvogneyn?”
“Solvagon?”
“Solvognenon!"
OK, I had no idea how to pronounce it either, so I called someone who does.
NS: “Solvognen, Solvognen, so 'sol' is sun and 'vognen' is wagon. Solvognen.”
PE: (Struggles immensely)
NS: "So it’s kinda like ‘whoa,’ that sound, 'vognen'." They took the name from a relic of early Norse religion.
NS: “So it’s the wagon of the sun, and
of course the chariot is how we usually translate it, the sun chariot, because it carries the sun
across the sky.”
But their mission was modern: in 1974, around
75 Santas dressed up and formed a Santa Claus army.
NS: “Denmark was in this oil crisis and just crisis in general.”
So they performed a miniature parable of Santas learning about the consumerism of Christmas.
The first day they were followed by angels, proudly parading with Danish flags.
The next day, they caroled. Then they visited a closed factory, and things
went downhill. The less-than-jolly Santas soon protested
unemployment and mobbed a department store, giving away free gifts.
Children wept as their Santas were arrested.
The first “SantaCon” was performance art with purpose.
So how did we get from that to Santas who shotgun Natty Ice and have vape pens?
Mother Jones wrote an article in 1977, and that article later inspired a prankish
art group in San Francisco who escapaded around the city and danced through the room at dinner parties.
From there it snowballed and lost the
anti-consumerist sentiment as the Santas got jolly. It became a party so wild ….that
Santa has been banned in several New York City neighborhoods.
Will SantaCon ever get back to its roots? Maybe not. Now it has its own new meanings.
“Santacon is my favorite thing that happens in New York. In the world.”
The Santas might be drunker, but they’re happier as they tiptoe around the holiday
vomit. But Danish Santas, don’t worry. At least
the elves are keeping up the fight. “My elf brother and sisters work 24/7 to
make little toys for children.”