SF Holidays 2023
Did SantaCon get cool again?
San Francisco’s homegrown Christmas-themed flash mob bar crawl returned Saturday. Yes Virginia, there is still a SantaCon.
By Adriana Roberts
Over the past 30 years, SantaCon — San Francisco’s homegrown, Christmas-themed flash mob bar crawl — has proven to be such a popular concept that it’s been exported to several cities around the world.
It’s never been a particularly organized event and that’s the beauty of it. Every December, it just sort of magically happens loosely via online groups, giving anyone who needs it an excuse to dress up in a Santa outfit to get drunk.
Started in 1994 by the Cacophony Society, a loose-knit group of San Francisco pranksters, the annual event has evolved from agitprop prank to playful-but-obnoxious bar crawl to kind of the family-friendly costume party it is today.
At least, that’s what it is for the first half of the day, before all the Santas start scattering from Union Square to hit various bars within walking distance, with Polk Street, North Beach, and the Marina being the most popular.
For several years, as SantaCon gained its well-deserved reputation as being an annoying “Christmas-themed Halloween for drunk straight people,” there was a trend to ban the hordes of Santas from bars and clubs. But in this post-pandemic economy, many bar owners now welcome the annual boost to business. A few places, like Club OMG in SoMa, even throw SantaCon dance parties.
The popular mythology of SantaCon is that it started off as a sort-of playful, anti-consumerist prank poking fun at the over-commercialization of Christmas. But the truth is that the first one in 1994 was mostly just 30 straight white guys behaving badly in public. With little recourse for their actions, due to the anonymity of everyone dressed up like Santa and hidden by big white beards, public drunkenness, indecent exposure, and sexual harassment were all on Santa’s to-do list. It was “a different time.”
The following year, when the mob of marauding Santas had tripled, it was even worse, with reports of Santas shoplifting, getting into fights, and a couple Santas getting arrested. There was even a disturbing Santa “lynching” at Market & Powell, which had to be traumatizing for any child unfortunate to see it.
So frankly, compared to those early rowdy days of guys hiding in Santa costumes in order to be assholes, SantaCon simply turning into a stupid bar-crawl for local twenty-somethings looking for a good time is not actually the worst development, considering Santacon’s more problematic beginnings.
This year’s SantaCon gathering at Union Square felt particularly festive. Long gone are the early days of everyone dressed up in the same cheap Santa suit from Oriental Trading Company or the phoned-in days of the 2010s, where many millennials missed the memo to get decked out and simply showed up in a Santa hat they bought at the Walgreens across the street.
These days, while the “red tide” of Santa apparel is still the predominant theme, participants were also festooned as green elves, Grinches, Christmas trees, brown reindeer, and all manner of holiday-themed costumery. Check out our gallery, and in the words of many revelers this past Saturday: “Happy SantaCon!”
Adriana Roberts is a DJ and performer with her Bootie Mashup parties, as well as a writer and trans influencer.
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