Santa Claus Pub Crawl

Festival Location: Canberra, ACT, Australia

Festival Type(s): Christmas Celebrations, Parties, Drink Festivals

Santa Claus Pub Crawl

By: © Glenn Morrison 2009

My Swedish mates were coming. They didn't yet know how, but they called me from Bondi Beach about 3 hours after they were originally scheduled to arrive in Canberra to say they'd stopped off for a swim on the way down from Sydney, and to ask for directions.

"Ok we're on our way to Canberra now; can you tell us which way it is?" asked Anders. This cracked me up. "Well where are you?" I guffawed. "We're on a beach...in Sydney..." All I could tell him was "So far you're doing really well on your own, so look for a major road and head south".

And so around 4 hours later, as they assured me they would, Anders, Petra and Helena arrived at Casa del Moro to enjoy the tourist delights of Canberra, or more precisely Queanbeyan, which must be Aboriginal for "Pimple on Canberra's Arse".

Princess and I had spent several Midsummers' and Christmas' with the Swedes in their natural habitat, and now it so happened that they had arrived on the night of Canberra's annual pre-Christmas institution: the Santa Claus Pub Crawl.

The Santa Claus Pub Crawl takes place on the last working Friday before Christmas. There is only one requirement: each crawler must be dressed head to toe in full Santa suit. Leeway can be given for home jobs performed on the suits such as cutting off trousers to keep cool and wearing thongs instead of gumboots, but every man, woman and over tanned Nordic backpacker must be fully Santa-ed to join in.

The Swedes found the outfits greatly amusing at first, until we had to walk from our car through the city to the first pub on the list. We didn't pass a single other Santa (isn't that always the case), and they began to wonder if I had played some wicked joke on the visiting tourists. And that would explain me dressing in full Santa kit just to make my devious plan more believable? I'm a planner, but not a nutcase.

But once we got to the first bar we were confronted with 300 or so well lubricated Mr and Mrs Claus, and soon enough the crazy Swedes were letting their hair down as only crazy Swedes can, downing a stack of shots and Bon Aqua's*.

Therein lies my in depth of knowledge of the pub-crawl. It seems to be run by some girl with a whistle, who gets cranky when you don't move onto the next bar as per the schedule, and who we refer to as Mary (as in "Mary Christmas"), although this may not be her real name**. The crawl visits such establishments as ICBM, North and Mooseheads, after which I'm not really sure where it ends up. We were doing Bon Aqua's by the time we got to Mooseheads so we were pretty much anyone's by that stage.

By the end of the night you will see Santas being shunted into police wagons, Santas arguing with kebab shop owners, Santas up telephone poles and Santas doing all kinds of things to Mrs Santas in alleyways all over the city. This year there were even a few Santas speaking their native Swedish tongue but this is not guaranteed on each Santa Claus Pub Crawl.

But most importantly, after the festivities are over, the real Santa *** way to sober up, get back to the North Pole then deliver presents to millions of children all over the world in just one night riding in a sled pulled by flying reindeer and sneaking down chimneys.

Unless of course he's Swedish and is spending Christmas backpacking along the east coast of Australia...drinking Bon Aqua's, of course.

* A Bon Aqua is a shot of vodka followed by a pint of ice water - poured over your head. It is Swedish and it is silly and it almost got us beat up by people much bigger than us.

** It is almost certain that this is not her real name.

*** The real Santa is not easy to find, a lesson learnt by my friend Glenn one year when standing at the bar in ICBM when someone whistled and yelled "Hey Santa!" and over 50 middle aged men in red suits turned around. I can only verify that one of them was definitely not the real Santa. Or was he...?

by Glenn Morrison