Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll look at a documentary about one of those annual events that New York loves to hate: SantaCon. And you can take the Friday Quiz, based on a story from thus week.
Seth Porges figured he would be persona non grata at SantaCon after making a documentary that showed the daylong bar crawl in all its raucousness. Consider: The trailer for the documentary opens with a voice declaring that “this is not the most wonderful time of the year.” Between images of revelers making merry or making trouble — and police officers making arrests — words flash on the screen describing SantaCon as “the most feared, most reviled, most hated event on the planet.” “Surprisingly,” Porges said, he has not been ostracized by SantaCon fans. Perhaps that is because his documentary ended up seeming sympathetic to what SantaCon once was. He interviewed people who were present at its creation and who seem uncomfortable with what it has become — an “annual headache” or a “red-suited scourge,” as articles in The New York Times have described it. SantaCon, which takes place tomorrow, is certainly polarizing. For some it brings to mind pleasant memories. There are couples who shared a first kiss at SantaCon, or people who weren’t couples until they started dating after sharing a first kiss at — well, you know. Others remember brawling with fellow Santas and encountering the police. My colleague Callie Holtermann, who also talked to Porges, gathered SantaCon stories from Times readers and recounts them here. SantaCon itself has posted a list of dos and don’ts on its website. “Santa spreads JOY,” it says. “Not terror. Not vomit. Not trash.” Another bullet point says: “Santa is about PEACE. Not fighting. Should you find yourself in conflict with a drunken Santa, walk away. Just let it go.” That page also notes that “Santa does not drink more than Santa can handle,” while another page is more specific, warning against carrying open containers of alcohol during SantaCon. “You WILL be arrested,” it says, “and Santa can’t bail you out.” Porges said he got the idea for the documentary in — where else — a bar in 2021. By then, many saw SantaCon as more naughty than nice. Two years before, for example, a segment on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” had blasted SantaCon as “a terrifying combination of binge drinking, public urination and trauma to small children that decades of therapy will never manage to reverse.” Porges said that he knew what “anybody in New York knew about SantaCon, which is that it’s the single worst day of the year, when you step outside and don’t realize until it’s too late that you’ve stepped into the sea of red felt.” The conversation in the bar, with Scott Beale, who said he had had a hand in inventing SantaCon, changed his mind. “He told me what it used to be was different and how strange it was for him to run into it now, how the people who started it had disowned it and how they were the same people who had started Burning Man and had inspired ‘Fight Club,’” Porges said. “I was thinking, there’s a movie in here.” Porges got access to video footage from the first SantaCons, in San Francisco in the 1990s. While the Santas drank a little too much even then, “what struck me was how different the people around them were,” Porges said. “They didn’t know what this was, so rather than being instantly disgusted, the faces of onlookers are awash with joy, wonder, surprise.” Porges said he came to see SantaCon as “a Frankenstein story, a story of what happens when you create something and then you lose control of it.” That, he said, fit with “this relatable 2025 idea, the feeling of living in a world you no longer fully understand and maybe isn’t meant for you, even if you were responsible for creating it. What I felt was inspiring about the creators of SantaCon was they chose not to be angry.” WEATHER It’s going to be a sunny, windy day, with a high near 35. Tonight, the wind will die down, the sky will become increasingly cloudy, and the temperature will drop to a low of 27. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Dec. 25 (Christmas) The latest Metro news
FRIDAY QUIZ Who said it?Two Republicans — Representative Elise Stefanik and Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive — are running for governor, even though some Republican leaders would like to avoid a face-off in a primary. Name the person who stayed neutral this week, saying this: “He’s great, and she’s great. They’re both great people.” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader METROPOLITAN DIARY Take a Stand
Dear Diary: When I was pregnant, I rode the subway to work. The closer I got to the birth of my daughter, the bigger I got, but nobody ever offered me a seat. Then one day, an older woman who must have been about 90 offered me hers. I insisted that I could not take her seat, but she was adamant. Finally, she stood up, and I sat down. She then turned to the young man sitting next to me. “You get up,” she said. “I’m an old lady.” — Nancy Suppa Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Lauren Hard and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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