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.


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.


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.


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.


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.