Nearly 40 Santas – along with a few elves, reindeer and even a ‘Hanukkah Harry’ – spread holiday cheer throughout Ocean Beach on Saturday, Dec. 19, during the annual SantaCon event. SantaCon is an annual mass gathering and pub crawl in which people dressed in Santa Claus costumes or as other Christmas characters parade in several cities around the world.[4]It has been variously also known as Santarchy, Santa Rampage, the Red Menace, and Santapalooza.
SantaCon began in San Francisco in 1994, inspired by a Mother Jones article on the Danish activist theatre group Solvognen. In 1974, the group gathered dozens of “Santas” in Copenhagen to hand out items from the shelves of a department store to customers as “presents”[6] before they were arrested.
SantaCon came to New York in 1998, when a “young San Franciscan strapped on a fake white beard, donned a $12 red suit, and led 200 Santas as they went caroling up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan,” to the delight of passersby.
It has since evolved and spread to 44 countries around the world, with varying versions and interpretations. Events for 2013 were scheduled in 300 cities, including New York City, London, Vancouver, Belfast, and Moscow. The New York SantaCon is the largest, with an estimated 30,000 people participating in 2012.