Not feeling the holiday spirit in your neighborhood? Head down to the East Village today for SantaCon 2011!
Thousands of Santas are currently swarming downtown Manhattan for this annual celebration. According to the NYC SantaCon website,
“Santacon is a non-denominational, non-commercial, non-political and non-sensical Santa Claus convention that occurs once a year for absolutely no reason.”
It’s easy to spot the SantaCon revelers since most are dressed like characters from classic Christmas films.
In the past hour alone, we spotted hundreds of Santas, dozens of elves, several reindeer, two girls dressed as “presents” and one abominable snowman.
>> Scroll down for more photos of creative SantaCon costumes!
To a bystander, it may seem like this swarm of Santas comes out of thin air– but they are actually following a route that has been laid out by event organizers.
SantaCon 2011 kicked off this morning at 10 AM in two locations: the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn.
If you want to join this moving flash mob, follow the hastag “SantaCon” on Twitter:
Don’t worry, there is still time to participate– in fact, the crowd is getting more festive by the minute as each SantaCon stop is a bar.
Are you participating in SantaCon?
Share your experience by leaving a comment below!
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Writer’s note: All photos taken on an iPhone 3Gs and processed using the free Photoshop Express app.
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Haha, this looks awesome!
Very surreal!
This is odd and fun! 🙂 People dress like Santa…. only in NYC I suppose? Holiday spirit indeed!
That’s a great description– odd and fun! It’s surreal seeing hundreds of Santas in my neighborhood. It happens in other cities, too– a growing trend!
That is pretty funny. We have this annual Christmas bar crawl in Chicago and many dress up as Santa. It is very humorous to see a bunch of drunken Santa’s walk down the street from bar to bar.
The key word is “drunken”– by 9PM there were passed out Santas on the streets and even a Santa walking directly down the middle of traffic on 2nd Ave. A very “festive” event 🙂
And where is Santa Leslie?? I just love the whole concept and the fact that all are welcome to come and join in the festivities!! Great article my friend!!
I considered joining, but couldn’t motivate to dress up or deal with the bar lines at 11 AM! Maybe there is an age limit on SantaCon 😉
looks like fun! There is a Santa fun run in Brisbane but I am not sure of the exact date!
My friends do this every year – love it!
HA! Love the shots of dogs all dressed up in Santa suits.
The photos look like so much fun! This is the second year I’ve missed Santa Con, darn! Stuck in bed with laryngitis and bout of serious respiratory infection, but thanks for cheering me up with the pics, Les!
Ha! That is so awesome. Here in London we’ve got Santa Runs – 5 or 6 km runs where all participants are dressed in Santa suits. Needless to say I tend to take part in these kind of events… 😀