Santa con

I went to Santa con Saturday. This is an offbeat, mass meeting of would be, wannabe, and could never be alleged Santa's in varied costumes, with satire of the traditional red suit more common than the original. Santa cons are held on different days in December in 117 cites in 27 countries and has a registry on line to assist in organizing each. There is no cost for Santa con and the optimum words are "adult", "alcohol", "informal", "fun" and "laughter". That's about it. A person gets to be Santa, an elf, a helper whatever else is associated with Santa and Christmas. In 2006, over 70,000 Santa's showed up the Moscow Santa con. Even Santa Karl Marx would be impressed with that turnout.

I only spent a few hours with the group, there were actually about 8 different Santa con groups and over 250 alleged Santa's Saturday. All the groups met at the Paul Bunyan statue in north Portland, and it was a mass of humanity. I never did find my group, so I was told to pick any and follow along. It was amusing but since the route goes from bar to bar, not being much a drinker of alcohol and not wanting to drink and drive home, I observed in a sober state.

A lot of the participants do this every year and do similar cons (there is big Easter con that is well attended too). One person told me today that she has done twelve in a row and says it ends in an insane drunken state late at night. The fact that we met first in a strip joint with a very well endowed pole dancer in action at 12 pm in the afternoon is a clue to the naughty not nice atmosphere. Everyone was friendly and it was fun being in the midst of it all, though I am a bit too "experienced' to find "getting drunk" a fun activity for a grown-up.

I imagine it gets mildly vulgar at times, but I am sure it must be amusingly so. On the whole, these Portland Santa's were amateurs at mob craziness, when compared to my old New Orleans carnival celebration. In New Orleans the carnival madness (New Orleans also has a Santa con, but I have never been in it) is organized and there is little aimlessness among the celebrants because there is a constant bombardment of stimuli. But people had fun.