What Have We Done To Deserve SantaCon In Bushwick
If you’re a New Yorker with eyes, you may know about SantaCon, the worst annual holiday tradition that we have going, and that includes fruitcake. (Honestly, what is with everyone hating on fruitcake? Like, it’s a cake. If you hate it don’t eat it. Unlike SantaCon, fruitcake will not vomit on your doorstep or make all your favorite hangouts just completely unbearable for a full 24 hours.) Bad news, Brooklynites: This year, the raging, horrible, drunken Santa suit mass will be coming to Bushwick.
This news comes via the Bushwick Daily, which printed an email from a terrified bartender alerting them that the Santa horde was looking for “participating venues” a.k.a “bartenders with death wishes.” This is sort of a blessing: One of the least charming aspects of SantaCon is that the route isn’t announced in advance, so you just never know when your life will be interrupted on a Saturday in December by a group of 30,000 frat dudes in white wigs slurring “Jingle Bells” at you. But now we know, basically avoid Bushwick from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on December 13th at all costs.
Look, OK, I am not a holiday Grinch. Do whatever you want as long as I don’t have to literally step in it on my way somewhere. But whenever I see anything about SantaCon, my first thought is actually exactly from Grinch-logic: We must find a way to stop SantaCon from coming! But how? SantaCons of the past, as the Times so aptly put it, “have been distinguised by sexism, drunkenness, xenophobia, homophobia and enough incidents of public vomiting and urination to fill an infinite drunk tank.” Great, great, the best that our fine city has to offer! In recent years, it’s been a good strategy to just avoid the regular horror haunts: No Williamsburg, no Murray Hill, no West Village. Is there no way to contain the drunk Santas? If I wanted be surrounded by drunken idiots in the daytime I would live in the East Village.
The Bushwick bar owner that SantaCon petitioned will not be participating. But here’s the rub: It doesn’t matter. Once SantaCon chooses your neighborhood, everyone is doomed. “It’s after the bar crawl when it becomes a nightmare. At 4PM when everyone shows up drinking since 10AM it’s a mess. Vomit town USA,” the bar owner said. Exactly. Ban Santa.