Thousands of Santas and a few Grinches hit the streets for annual SantaCon bar crawls
NEW YORK, Dec 15: Santa Clauses are coming to town.
Thousands of Kris Kringles and jolly Old St. Nicks are jamming streets, sidewalks and bars from Adelaide to Vancouver on Saturday for annual SantaCon charity pub crawls.
In New York City, where temperatures hovered around freezing, the fermented merriment kicked off around 10 am and was slated to stretch into the evening.
Santas – along with people dressed as Grinches, elves or other holiday characters – strolled to bars and clubs from midtown Manhattan to the East Village, flooding the streets with a crimson tide of Christmas cheer.
“The NYC SantaCon is a charitable, non-commercial, non-political, nonsensical Santa Claus convention that happens once a year to spread absurdist joy,” the organizers’ website explained.
SantaCon participants are encouraged to donate $15 to enter participating venues. Organizers say the money will go to charity. Similar Christmas-themed booze fests were being held Saturday in about 50 cities around the globe, including London, Phoenix, Winnipeg and San Francisco. Some placed held their SantaCons on Friday, last weekend or late last month. More are scheduled throughout December. (AP)
Mysterious googly eyes go viral after appearing on public art in Oregon
PORTLAND, Dec 15: Googly eyes have been appearing on sculptures around the central Oregon city of Bend, delighting many residents and sparking a viral sensation covered widely by news outlets and featured on a popular late-night talk show.
On social media, the city shared photos of googly eyes on installations in the middle of roundabouts that make up its so-called “Roundabout Art Route.” One photo shows googly eyes placed on a sculpture of two deer, while another shows them attached to a sphere. It’s not yet known who has been putting them on the sculptures.
“While the googly eyes placed on the various art pieces around town might give you a chuckle, it costs money to remove them with care to not damage the art,” the city said in its posts.
The Facebook post received hundreds of comments, with many users saying they liked the googly eyes. (AP)