Thousands of Christmas fans dressed as St. Nick take to the streets of New York for SantaCon - as police brace for booze-fueled anarchy

Thousands of Christmas fans flocked to the streets of New York City as the booze-fueled SantaCon crawl returned to the Big Apple this weekend.

Revelers dressed as St. Nick, the Grinch, elves, and various other Christmas-themed characters took to the streets, navigating through Manhattan while the New York Police Department braved the anarchy.

The festivities kicked off at 10am on Saturday morning, starting from bars and clubs in midtown Manhattan and are anticipated to conclude at 8pm in the East Village. 

Ahead of the expected blowout, New York City's transit police announced a city-wide ban on alcohol on subway platforms and trains, attempting to limit those who may have had too many spiked eggnogs.

Passengers heading into Manhattan from New Jersey and suburbs in New York are prohibited from drinking alcohol from 4am Saturday through Saturday noon.

'Ensuring everyone has access to safe and orderly travel is a top priority,' MTA Police Chief John Mueller said in a statement earlier this week. 

'The holiday season is a wonderful time of year, and we want everyone to get to their destination smoothly and on time while enjoying the festivities.'

SantaCon began in San Francisco in 1994 and and has since spread to almost 300 locations, but the event in NYC has been the biggest.

Organizers described the event as 'a charitable, non-political, nonsensical Santa Claus convention that happens once a year to spread absurdist joy.' 

Participants are encouraged to donate $15 to charities as an entry fee into dozens of participating venues.  

Hours after the event started this year, organizers posted what they called 'six F's' on X, formerly Twitter, to remind partygoers to follow the rules and stay sober. 

'Don't f**k with kids, NYPD, bar staff, yourself, charity, or NYC,' organizers wrote in the social media post. 

'The sleigh is flyin' fast now. For the best results at SantaCon NYC don't forget the 6 F's! Know em, Live em, Love em,' they wrote. 

A group photo captured at the intersection of the 39th St and Broadway was posted around the noon on social media as boozy Santas partying throughout the city. 

For locals, the surge in public intoxication is not especially merry especially after a reveler reportedly peed in the middle of a McDonald's in front of a child in 2019. 

A wild brawl between a group of Santas was caught on camera in 2018, while in 2016 a Santa hitched an illicit ride on the back of a fire truck, leading the person who shared the image to sum up the feelings of many in New York: 'Make this day end.' 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joked that a GrinchCon could be set up in opposition to the polarizing event. She suggested a 'tea and coffee crawl' could be established, spreading 'peace and quiet'. 

In 2013, New York police lieutenant John Cocchi, in an open letter to NYC bars, called on businesses to boycott the event where 'thousands of intoxicated partygoers roam the streets urinating, littering, vomiting and vandalizing.' 

A long list of incidents that landed attendees on the naughty list led Curbed Magazine to praise how, when the Coronavirus pandemic shut down the US economy in 2020, the cancelation of Santa Con was 'a single bright spot' worth celebrating. 

For those looking to understand why a fun-filled day of alcohol could anger New Yorkers, a scathing New York Times op-ed from 2013 attempted to sum it up.

Comparing the day to 'spoiled eggnog', the 'obnoxious' event was slammed for losing its counter-culture roots, concluding that 'participating in the Big Apple’s version of SantaCon is about as anti-establishment as a trip to Disney World.'

Ironically, the parade's reputation as an obnoxious, marketing-filled drinking campaign is a long way from its roots. 

The Big Apple was not always running the show, as SantaCon - which now covers over 300 cities and 44 countries - dates its history back to Scandanavia in the 1970s. 

Beginning as a performance art protest in Denmark, the first of the conventions was a political demonstration in contrast to the event's current insistence on being 'non-political.' 

Danish art collective 'Solvognen' decided in 1974 to protest perceived inequalities in society in a bizarre way, with 75 members dressing as Santa pretending to slowly understand more about the consumerism and greed ruining the holiday, reports Vox.

At first day the protests were fun and easygoing, including Santas being serenaded by angels on the streets of Copenhagen. 

By the end of their days-long performance art piece, Solvognen had worked themselves into a frenzy, and were destroying buildings with pickaxes while Santas flung out presents for free. 

Scenes of anarchist Santas being arrested became iconic in Denmark, and the 'Santa Claus army' (Julemandshæren) was even officially added to the Denmark Culture Canon to name it as a landmark moment in the country's cultural history. 

A Mother Jones article on the phenomenon in 1977 caught attention overseas, and a San Francisco secret society known as the 'Cacophony Society' eventually held its own version in 1994.  

Santas reportedly caused chaos as they snuck into parties and disrupted holiday bashes, described by a member in 2014 as 'a little mocking of a bulls*** holiday which was demonstrably based on an unholy alliance of religious hypocrisy and mercantile lust.' 

Although initially meant to be a one-time-thing, the campaign quickly escalated, sometimes dubbed as 'Santarchy.'

 By 1966, Oregon had joined the fun thanks to its own Cacophony Society, before SantaCon parades were almost nationwide by 2000 as they became synonymous with pub crawls.

The pub crawl - where participants trawl from bar to bar drinking as much as they can - has also seen the event become dominated by alcohol, rivalling Halloween and St Paddy's Day as the heaviest days on the drinking calendar. 

Usually populated by 20 and 30-somethings, SantaCon is ostensibly a charity event, as organizers in New York urge attendees to donate $15 to take part, although it does not appear mandatory. 

New York City serves as the global hub of the day's partying, working in a similar way to the city's huge Thanksgiving and St Paddy's Day parades as other metros hold their own smaller jamborees. 

 This has also caught the ire of both New York residents and law enforcement, with the one of the rowdiest recent editions coming in 2015 when five Santas were arrested. 

Organizers have tried to turn the event around, and insisted the year after it was cancelled by the Covid-19 pandemic that it had 'changed significantly for the better.'

Whether it has actually changed in the last two years may depend on who you ask, but the organizers insisted that despite its flaws, Santa Con is carried out in the right spirit. 

'We agree that there is no excuse for inappropriate behavior including public drunkenness, urination, or rude behavior,' SantaCon said.

“This is not only prohibited by the stated rules of the event, but actively discouraged by the crowds of Santas themselves, who are, for the most part, responsible, creative, community-minded New Yorkers. 

'NYC Santa realizes that he has a responsibility to New York City and its citizens.'