Monday, December 10, 2007

Bridge Break for Random Santa Sightings

Saturday as I walked west on NW Everett, covering some ground until the bus came along to take me to the post office on NW Hoyt, I glimpsed two Santas up ahead, walking on the north sidewalk. They disappeared quickly. I couldn't catch up with them to get a photo. Hours later, after walking over the Broadway Bridge (post to come), eating lunch at Burgerville, and then walking toward the Steel Bridge (post to come), I spied three Santas crossing the street in front of me.
santas_3_enhanced

The man on your left wears sunglasses, the woman in the middle wears what appears to be red-and-white-striped tights beneath her Santa-style skirt, and the one on the right wears traditional wide, black Santa Claus belt.
santas_3_crossing_enhanced_620x542

After walking across the Steel Bridge, I sat down on a curb to get a better angle for a photo of it, and a Santa rode by on a bicycle--a lady Santa in a plaid coat. What's going on with these Santas here, there and everywhere, I wondered.
santas_1_bike

Once again, hours later as I waited at SW Washington and SW 3rd Avenue for the 15 bus, I noticed four--count them, four--Santas getting out of a parked car. (Sorry the photo's not any better.) Now I'm really curious, but it's getting late and cold, so I board the bus and head for home.
santas_4_car

To my surprise, a bus buddy--that's what I call people I've struck up an accquaintance with, mostly on the ride home--got on at SW 5th and Washington. She'd been downtown shopping at Macy's and told me all about it. As we looked out the front of the bus when it stopped at Broadway, three more Santas crossed in front of us, going north. "What's with these Santas all over today?" she asked. Shocked that she'd seen Santas, too, I explained my chance encounters to her. We couldn't come up with an answer to our mystery.

We got off the bus, wished each other "Happy Birthday"--hers is next Tuesday, mine is Wednesday--and I continued on into Walgreens to empty my memory cards onto photo CDs. I shopped while the machine worked and overheard a very tall woman talking on her cell phone while looking a reindeer headbands with little blinking Christmas lights. Evidently she was about to join friends who had been in a pub crawl since noon, and she wanted to wear something funny and/or entertaining. I tucked that bit of information away in my mind.

Once I got home, I downloaded photos, put those other Morrison Bridge photos on the blog, then started reading comments on my blog and looking at those blogs. I came across a new one, Nicole, at The Path of a Modern Goddess. In exploring her posts, I discovered that she and her husband had met at a Santa Claus pub crawl--the light bulb atop my head came on!

Could that be the explanation? I couldn't find anything on a quick search of Google, so I stopped thinking about the Santas until tonight when I started working on my blog. I typed in more specific info on Google, and I found out that there indeed had been a Santa event of sorts in Portland yesterday, beginning at noon, complete with a set of instructions and a map. You can read about it here, but be forewarned, it is NOT meant to be a warm and fuzzy holiday event.

Still and all, I'm glad to have an explanation for those random Santa sightings. And I'm planning to be at this year's tuba concert--Tuba Christmas--weather permitting, at Pioneer Courthouse Square on Dec. 15; maybe I'll see a second wave of Santas.

19 comments:

Fénix - Bostonscapes said...

LOL! Santacon! What a concept! And they all looked so nice... >8D

ROTFL!!!

AVCr8teur said...

First of all, let me wish you an early birthday in case I don't get a chance later in the week. After hanging out with Stormtroopers, I'm not surprised there is such a thing as Santacon. From your photo, those people walking by the 3 Santas didn't even give them a second look.

Lynette said...

Thanks, AVCR8TEUR! And you're right about no one giving the Santas a second look. That's one of the things I like about Portland. People don't point and gape at differences--and there certainly are lots of differences here from my frame of reference--they just keep right on going, at least in my experience. It's absolutely wonderful.

Unknown said...

Perhaps your town is becomming the Bermuda Triangle of Santa's, or it's an invasion by aliens & they've noticed that there are a lot of people about at this time of year dressed in red!

dot said...

I'm a little slow at times. Sometimes I hear a joke and I don't laugh until a week later. I didn't understand what they were doing at their event but like you said it didn't sound warm and fuzzy.

Andrea said...

Cute.

Gwen said...

The women santas have interesting santa attire variations. :)Wishing you an early Happy Birthday for Wednesday!

Chris said...

Oh, good grief! I read the Santacon post, and all I can say is "GOOD GRIEF! IS NOTHING SACRED??"

At any rate, enjoyed the Santa photos! ;-)

A December baby! Our son's birthday is Saturday. He was supposed to be born Nov. 11, but he didn't quite cooperate.

Dan said...

Great job catching these Santa's this was fantastic. One of my coworkers has his birthday on the 25th.

NorthBayPhoto said...

Great Santa photos. Happy Birthday ahead of time!

Thanks for visiting my NorthBayPhoto blog.

Olivier said...

tous ces pères noel sont venus pour préparer ton prochain anniversaire ;o). belle série
all these santa clauss came to prepare your next birthday ;O). beautiful series

Jim Klenke said...

How funny, thanks for the research, I am sure they all mean well....yeah, uh huh.

Great pictures.

Lara said...

it's conspiration (or a conference?) of Santas :)), I guess!?

Bettey said...

Cute post! Happy early b-day!

mmmmm. Burgerville ;)

smilnsigh said...

Cute post.

I clicked on the link, about the Portland Pub Crawl and got this message....
===================

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
====================

Guess a lot of people are trying to access it! I think that's what overreaching bandwidth means.

Mari-Nanci

Wayne said...

Neat pics, great story. Good luck with the Tuba gig... lol.
Thanks,
Wayne

• Eliane • said...

Yes, Santacon was in NYC on Saturday too! I bumped into a drunken Santa too - see my post here. Oh boy...

WendyB said...

Santas are on the move! Look out, naughty people!

Ming the Merciless said...

Love the Santa-ress on bicycle!!