You better watch out, as Saturday’s SantaCon has fattened up with additional new Friday and Sunday events, making SantaCon a three-day, weekend-long affair as SF’s new holiday pop-up bars are hosting expanded SantaCon events.

Saturday’s SantaCon will actually be the 30th anniversary version of the annual gathering of drunk people in Santa Claus costumes and their accompanying cosplay slutty elves. (Though it’s only the 29th SF Santacon, as the event was canceled because of COVID in 2020.)

KQED has an excellent retrospective of the first SantaCon in 1994, which was then known as “Santarchy” or “Cheap Suit Santas.” It was a culture-jammer prank by the Cacophony Society promoting anti-commercialism, or what Burning Man co-founder John Law said was a protest of the “middle-class hypocrisy” of contemporary Christmas celebrations.

But Red Alert, everybody! SF SantaCon has now evolved into a three-day pub crawl, and Santa’s sack will cover Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This egg nog-soaked, less athletic Bay to Breakers is not just one day anymore, but now a three-day weekend, largely thanks to those new holiday cocktail pop-up bars that have opened up for December.

SantaCon has certainly evolved for both the better and the worse over these 30 years. But one way it’s evolved for the better is that organizers say SF SantaCon is now the largest donor of toys to the San Francisco Firefighters Toy Program. SantaCon participants are asked to bring an unwrapped toy to donate at the main Union Square meeting place, and those toys will go to underprivileged, impoverished, and hospitalized kids so they too can be on the Nice list for the holidays.

“I’m not asking for money. I’m not asking for anything but toys for the kids,” current SantaCon organizer Tom DiBell tells SFist.

The normal Santacon proceedings and holly jolly pub crawling are still on for Saturday (though realize that rain is in the forecast). The toy drive booth will be at Union Square from 12 pm-5 pm, and there will be performances by Burlesque Band of San Francisco at 1 pm and the 40-member TempTime Carolers at 2 pm. Santas will of course scatter off and deck the halls at bars all over town, but there is the somewhat structured Santa Stroll Down Lombard Street 3:45 pm, of course at the crooked part of Lombard Street.

But the most wonderful/stumbling drunk time of the year now extends to Friday, December 13, and Sunday, December 15. The two extra days come courtesy of the new holiday pop-up cocktail bar Mistletoe, which has three locations this year.

And look at some of these prizes available at Friday’s SantaCon Costume Contest at the 580 Sutter Street location of Mistletoe! The costume contest is from 8 to 9 pm Friday night, and you can also win commemorative SantaCon coins, SantaCon pins, and tree ornaments. Prizes will be awarded in the categories of Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, Naughty Santa, Santa’s Helpers, and “Not Santa but Still Christmas.”

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On Sunday, Mistletoe's Marina location at 2030 Lombard Street will host a special SantaCon Sunday Drag Brunch, with live performances, and seatings at 12 noon and 2 pm. Sunday is also the day when the winners will be selected in the SantaCon Photo Contest, where winners get a $40 Macy’s gift card and a $40 Mistletoe gift card.

“When you take photos at SantaCon be sure [to] take one photo with the Macy’s logo visible,” contest organizers say. “Then post the photo on IG or FB with these 3 hashtags: #Macy’sUnionSquare, #SantaConSF2024, #MistletoeBar.”

It is well-known that these days, many SF bars ban SantaCon participants from even entering the premises. But the current crew of SF SantaCon organizers have rebuilt some of those bridges, and now even offer a SantaCon Mobile Map to direct the Saint Nicks to bars that not only tolerate, but actively welcome Santa Clauses coming to town.

While SantaCon started in San Francisco in 1994, by 2013 it had spread to more than 300 cities worldwide. And the results were not good, as drunken Santa babies turned the event into a toxic fruitcake of boorish behavior, public urination, and shitshow antics. Our former New York sister site Gothamist called for an end to SantaCon in 2011. The anti-SantaCon backlash was in full effect here in San Francisco, as in 2012, Eater SF published “No Santas” signs that bars posted in their windows. Most notoriously, two drunken Santas trashed the Polk Street restaurant Shalimar (and skipped on their tab) in 2018.

But by 2014, the official SF SantaCon organizers were so horrified at the abominable snowman their creation had become that they declared San Francisco SantaCon was dead.

That’s when Tom DiBell stepped in to take the reins of the sleigh. A former mall Santa Claus in Petaluma and a US marine veteran of the Vietnam War, DiBell took over for the same reasons that many of you absolutely hate SantaCon.

“I go back about 10 years,” DiBell tells SFist. “One year I went, and I was in a party mood. And I just saw a bunch of people milling around, and not really doing much of anything other than getting drunk, getting high.”

“I thought that maybe with a little help, this thing could be better,” he says. “I decided, I can collect toys.”

So DiBell took over organizing SantaCon and started encouraging all participants to bring one new unwrapped to donate to the SF Fire Department toy drive. The event pulled in 900 toys the first first year he did this, 1,500 toys the following year, and now brings in about 4,000 toys with each SF SantaCon.

“We became the single largest donator of toys to the SF Fire Department Toy Program,” DiBell tells us. Now the SF Fire Department provides the event with a pop-up tent, a throne for “Santa Tom” to sit on, and a fleet of firefighters collecting the toys.

Though as SFist reported in 2021, hucksters are trying to sell tickets to SantaCon, even though it is a completely free event. This year those hucksters have even jacked the price up to $40 for their “pub crawls” that are no different than normal SantaCon. They’ve also gummed up the works of SEO and Google searches by buying the domains SanFranciscoSantaCon.com and TheSantaCon.com, apparently hoping to dupe younger and newer people who might not realize that SantaCon is free.

DiBell takes this in stride. “Even the folks that have ridden our coat tails and started this pub crawl, I don’t have a problem with them being there,” he says. “Just as long as they don’t call themselves ‘the Official SantaCon.’”

And obviously, many San Franciscans see red when the Santas appear on their street or at their business, because SantaCon had developed a terrible reputation in previous years.

“Yes, there are bad actors,” DiBell explains. “There are going to be bad actors no matter where you go. Doesn't matter if it's Outside Lands, or Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, or any of the events that are held on Saint Patrick's Day. What I’ve been trying to do over the years is tone that back a little bit.”

“Eat food throughout the day. Drink a bottle of water after every two or three drinks,” he emphasizes. “If you see a child, give them a candy cane. Have some candy canes in your pocket so that you can give them to a child.

“Make it a SantaCon that’s a good SantaCon not only for you, but for those around you.”

Related: Hold On to Your Hats: Santacon Rears Its Bearded Head Again Saturday [SFist]

Image: Kevin Y via Yelp