But the fact is, most SantaCons involve stops at bars along a prescribed route, and over the years, there have been isolated reports of misbehavior. In New York, police have issued summonses for violations of open container laws, and some bars refuse entry to anyone dressed in red. Last year, residents of Lower Manhattan complained of drunken Santas vomiting and urinating in the streets.
"There was one Santa lying on the ground and I saw a father go by with two young children and the little girl said, 'Daddy, what is wrong with Santa?'" said Community Board 1 member Paul Hovitz, who worries that the event encourages binge drinking and underage drinking.
Ian Sibley, who organizes the SantaCon.info website, acknowledges that "a dark shadow seems to haunt the event. So we take the extra step of emphasizing not drinking too much and supporting a good cause."
Like New York, many SantaCons require participants to bring donations.
Sibley started SantaCon.info five years ago with a half-dozen listings after "encountering this crazy thing with all these people dressed up like Santa" in Asheville, NC. The website now lists nearly 275 events in 37 countries between November and January. Sibley says SantaCons have been held on every continent - from Uganda to Katmandu to Sydney and even Antarctica - but he dates the first events to the 1990s in Copenhagen and San Francisco. He says New York is one of the biggest, drawing 20,000 Santas.
Anna Sandler, a mom from Maplewood, NJ, thinks most participants take seriously the notion that SantaCon must not hurt Santa's image. Two years ago while pushing her toddler in a stroller in Manhattan, Sandler encountered "tons of Santas crossing the street and had no idea why. It was the most amazing spectacle." She stopped a few Santas to chat, then went home and looked the event up online.
"The Santas were completely hammered, but also completely polite," she said. "They were definitely following the SantaCon creed of being super-respectful."
Like zombie walks at Halloween, SantaCon is a grassroots phenomenon, organized locally and mostly through digital media, from email blasts and websites to Twitter and FourSquare. The term SantaCon may bring to mind Comic-Con, the pop culture convention, but there's no industry behind SantaCon, though a growth in sales of Santa suits led Party City to start advertising on SantaCon.info in 2011.
People in Hainan enjoy warm weather
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