Oregon Public Broadcasting

No trip downtown at this time of year is complete until you’ve seen Santa, in department store windows, in parades, or ringing bells for the Salvation Army.

But each year, Santa appears in Portland for a more subversive purpose: the annual Santacon.  April Baer reports on one of the most peculiar holiday traditions in Oregon.

Take one look at the over-produced, overly-corporate side of Christmas, and reach for the bottle. That is the spirit of Santacon, says David Owens, one of the people behind Santacon Portland.

David Owens:  “My first Santacon technically was 2003. The one I remember is 2004.”

Santacon is hundreds and hundreds of drunk people  in red suits converging for a pub crawl and demonstration of creative disorder.  

Think Burning Man with a little eggnog thrown in, and you're starting to get the picture. 

There are hundreds of YouTube videos of Santacons across the country. Santas slugging blue-tinted vodka out of a windex bottle, Santas catapulting fruitcakes hundreds of feet in the air.

Or just  shaking their scarlet-clad booties through Powell's Books.

It's not pretty. But it does look like fun.

Santacon has  a few simple rules: don't mess around with kids, don't bait the police, or bar bouncers.  And don't toy needlessly with the concept of Santa.

Portland police have put up with ho-ho-hooliganism for several years, but last year the event blew up.

Close to a thousand liquored up Santas turned out -- and some did not keep to the rules. This year, organizers say they hope to weed out some chaff.

They've moved SantaCon  out to Hillsboro.

Sgt. Brian Schmautz:  "I've heard that perhaps Washington County's going to get a few Santas this year!"

Sgt. Brian Schmautz of the Portland Police sounds less than devastated.

Sgt. Brian Schmautz:  "You know, we want to share the wealth of enjoyment around the community so that we don't get to have it all."

Michael Rouches:   "I've got visions of 200 bad Santas."

That's Lt. Michael Rouches of the Hillsboro police. He may be in for a surprise, if last year's turnout is any indication. But he says the department's not kicking up to red alert, just because Santas are coming to town.

Lt. Michel Rouches:  "We wouldn't operate on a perspective that they're only coming to make trouble, because that's usually only a small percentage of the people that are in any event."

Compared with the larger crowds that come out for Fat Tuesday or St Patrick's Day, most police seem to feel a few hundred drunken Santas really aren't that big a deal.

Nevertheless, the Santacon crew is very excited about this year's event.

On a recent night, dozens of Santas gathered up bags of thrift store toys. With glue guns, glitter and pipepcleaners, the toys were repurposed, like some deranged second-grade craft project.

Some turned into bona fide Christmas delights. And others into toys meant only for adults.

Santa Luna  "This little talking angel has got a skull on its head, with some googly eyes, and a long tongue. And um. It talks when you squeeze its hand. ('bless me god, please be my guide.') So that's kind of creepy."

As for where exactly these Santas will be this weekend, the beauty is that nobody really knows for sure.

Do Santacon organizers really want to keep away undesirables by moving to Hillsboro? Or is it a campaign of mischievous misinformation, designed to lead the police away from their true destination?

That's just the kind of festive fluster that Santacon is all about.