SantaCon

I am your worst nightmare, the woman who strikes up long involved conversations with you, a stranger, in public places. I think that one loses ones inhibitions as one ages (and is no longer embarrassed to pen a sentence like the previous one, in which I used the "royal" one three times in a row).

So I was taking the train into Manhattan yesterday and noticed three young men sitting in the seat across the aisle, fully decked out in Santa Claus regalia. The man to my left saw me looking at them and whispered that there were also a variety of elves and reindeer on the train.

So looked at the young man closest to me and in true uninhibited fashion asked him, "Where are you going?"

"Into the city," he replied.

I shot him a dirty look and then he added sheepishly, "For Santa-Con." He explained that Santa-Con was some sort of convention, he didn't really know what it was, but he was going.

Then, without missing a beat (and realizing that I didn't have a blog post prepared for Monday) I asked him, "Can I take your picture?" So here are the three young men, the first of many festively-clad I saw yesterday:


I corralled another couple of S. Claus' on an escalator, who also admitted they had no idea what SantaCon was all about, but that they had heard that jumping rope was involved.

Here are some more of them:

When I got home I looked up SantaCon on the web, but the website didn't explain the event too well either:
http://nycsantacon.com/

Only 368 more days until the next SantaCon. And next year, since I already kind of know what the event is about, I promise not to pepper you with questions in public. But best to not sit next to me on a long airplane flight.

P.S. One of the office buildings I passed had a lovely Christmas scene in the window with merry squirrels, seamstress elves and this frightening little guy with the Star Trek ear....I just had to share.