Christmas Comes Early, Notification Comes Late

"No force on earth can stop one hundred Santas!"

The Bellagio is to be Ground Zero for a Vegas exercise in SANTA RAMPAGE. The task, a bit of culture jamming or Santarchy!, with Santas and Elves making themselves present, is to confuse and befuddle the tourists around the Bellagio. The Santas and Elves should be lurking about the fountains on Friday, July 16th, starting at 8 pm.

An email on the LVarts mailing list, attributed to The Las Vegas Burningman Crew and Las Vegas Community Artists Group, has a simple list of rules for proper Santa/Elf decorum.

1. You MUST be dressed as a Santa, Mrs. Santa, or an Elf to attend,
simply putting on a Santa hat and showing up does not cut it, you
need to be in costume. YES it's going to be friggin' hot, so bring
some water as well.

2. You are expected to be fully self sufficient, that is, you will
need drinking money and personal supplies; this is not a free ride.

3. DON'T MESS WITH LITTLE KIDS. Kids take Santa VERY seriously, and
nothing says "please kick my ass dad" like making a little kid cry.
Don't do it! In fact, you are expected to bring little toys/gifts to
hand out to people as we make our way up & down the strip. Bring a
few pieces of charcoal to hand out to grumpy people too. Cheap
trinkets can be purchased online from places such as this
http://www.orientaltrading.com
or at your local Toys-R-Us

4. Don't mess with the cops or security. If we are asked to leave a
particular location we need to do it, with no hassles promptly and as
a group.

5. Stay together: `No force on earth can stop a hundred Santas', but
there's a lot of forces that can stop one or two, because believe it
or not, not everyone loves Santa. There's power in numbers, use it.

6. No one is in charge, when asked "what are you guys doing" the
answer to almost every question is "I'm Santa" or just "Santa."

While it's pretty assured that this Santarchy event won't be as well attended as the NYC based SantaCon 2003, one could hope that Vegas has the lights to attract more St. Nicks in the future.

And apologies for not getting this post put out earlier, as planned on.