We all know the story. Santa has a list, and he’s checking it twice. He knows who’s been naughty, and he knows who’s been nice. But what if Santa is the one being bad?
Santa and the revelers
You might think Kris Kringle would have too much to do to take time off for a Saturday night soiree, but Jolly Old Saint Nick can’t pass up a good time. One way Santa is enjoying himself these days is through SantaCon events across the country.
The Santas that participate in these celebrations are male and female, young and old, veterans and novices alike. SantaCon events are held under the pretense of raising money for charity, but to many city residents, the tradition looks more like a drunken all-day pub crawl.
In fact, participants in New York City’s SantaCon are known to get so rowdy and out of hand that the New York Police Department has asked bars not to serve them and New Jersey Transit banned alcohol from its trains during SantaCon events. In 2013, one mob of Santas was captured on film getting into a drunken brawl.
Bad Santa true crime stories
In 1927, Marshall Ratliff dressed as Santa, walked into a bank in Cisco, Texas, and robbed it at gunpoint. A manhunt for Ratliff and his three accomplices ensued, which ended when a mob descended on Santa and hung him in a parking lot behind a theater. I guess they had run out of coal.
One Santa in Hanover, Massachusetts, was charged with assaulting his Santaland photographer. He then gave the middle finger to a TV reporter covering his firing. Another man dressed as Santa in Salem, New Hampshire, walked up to shoppers in a Rockingham Park mall and dropped his pants not once, but multiple times. Later, he was caught with his pants down at a New Hampshire high school.
An Atlanta, Georgia, mall Santa had had enough of a 74-year-old woman who he claimed had stolen $145 in chocolates, so he killed her. Another one lured an 8-year-old girl into his motorcycle sidecar. Luckily he didn’t get far before the girl’s father chased him down at speeds of 80 mph.
In 2011 in Birmingham, Alabama, a man dressed as Santa knocked on the door of a 22-year-old woman and said he was collecting for a charity. He punched her in the nose and entered the house, intent on taking what he could find. When the woman’s father showed up, he got his own beating from Saint Nick. The Santa left with nothing, but his behavior was still downright rotten.
Resist being the bad Santa
If you have the idea to dress up as Santa Claus this Christmas and committing a crime, don’t do it. A red suit is no disguise, and even Santa has to pay for his crimes.
Related:
