Free Republic

New York City's SantaCon returned this year as hundreds took part in drunken debauchery after the booze-fueled festival was cancelled last year due to the pandemic. The event brought countless of maskless Santas, Grinches, reindeers and other holiday-themed characters to the Big Apple on Saturday to march, crawl through pubs and celebrate Christmas. The fun times come amid concerns that the gathering might serve as a super-spreader for the COVID-19 Omicron variant, which has now been spotted in half of U.S. states, including New York. At least 43 people in the country have contracted Omicron, with New York confirming 20...

For those looking to an alternative to SantaCon, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a perfect idea. The U.S. Representative-elect for New York’s 14th congressional district — who at 29 is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress — tweeted a new option to anyone uninterested in participating in the annual holiday pub crawl featuring attendees dressed in Christmas costumes. Asked by New York Times reporter Liam Stack if she could “pass a law stopping santacon,” Ocasio-Cortez joked, “I’m not sure, but maybe we can look into establishing GrinchCon — a tea + coffee crawl where people can spread peace and quiet everywhere...

The costumed New York City bar crawl SantaCon was initially created to marry getting into the holiday spirit and copious amounts of alcohol. Unfortunately, when revelers have been drinking all day, things tend to get out of hand.