I only saw Santacon in the wilds of my East Village neighborhood this year as opposed to covering it as an embedded Santa in previous years. It is a lot less jolly from the outside. Actually the amount of jollity for me in Santacon has been steadily diminishing for several years. It used to be creative play, improvisational comedy, artistic expression, singing, and dancing. What I saw today was 95% bar-crawling, dull, unsmiling and rude youth in rented Santa suits. Granted, I know there are pockets of creative Santas huddled together throughout the separate location, I encountered some myself (see the video). But seeing only the Santas that chose to come to my bar-wracked neighborhood was a revelation.

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