Santacon comes to town

The timing could not have been more ironic. On Friday night, Yes, Virgina, an animated Christmas special set in New York in 1897, aired on network television. On Saturday, Santacon, an excuse for as many as 1400 characters in Santa Claus suits to party, played out across New York City’s bars and streets.

I realized something strange was afoot when I saw a tall guy dressed like Santa Claus walking in Penn Station. He looked like he could stuff a bag of toys down a chimney just by standing on the tips of his toes. Instead, he dutifully purchased a ticket back to Long Island, presumably en route to the North Pole where elves and reindeer are finalizing preparations for another Christmas Eve.

Moments later, I saw groups of red-suited white-bearded people on subway cars. Sightings of Santas, some of them women with very short skirts under their short red and white coats, continued on the East Side in the early evening. Riding a cab along Second Avenue hours later, I saw groups of Santa Claus lookalikes hanging outside a number of bars.

According to its web site, the New York City Santacon event “is a non-denominational, non-commercial, non-political and non-sensical Santa Claus convention that occurs once a year for absolutely no reason.” There was some revelry around town, for sure, but no Santa arrests, according to a newspaper report. A tweet stated, though, that police prevented Santas from occupying the red bleachers in Times Square, saying, “You can’t stay here.”

Santa is not Superman, however, and some of the red-suited characters I saw at Penn Station as midnight approached seemed ready to turn into pumpkins. They sat on the floor, glazed eyes half-shut, slumped by their companions, as if they were thinking, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

If an 8-year-old child witnessed the Santacon spectacle, what would they say? If a newspaper editor was challenged by a child to explain whether Santa Claus is real, what would they write? “Yes, Virginia, there is a…Santacon.”