Getting In The Holiday Spirit

Christmas always creeps up like a little monster that didn’t want to go back to the graveyard after Halloween. It stuck around and ate all the Thanksgiving leftovers and turned into a ginormous beast and now it’s here to wreak havoc on traffic and devour every last dollar in your wallet. As scary as it may be, it’s already almost Christmas again.

If you have any doubt that the holiday is in fact about to occur, head down to Waikiki, where hundreds of Santas are expected to descend on Saturday. It’s for SantaCon 2015, the annual Santa-themed costume parade/bar crawl. It kicks off at 6 p.m. from Tiki’s Grill & Bar.

If you ever felt sad that Santa didn’t visit you some year, then this will more than make up for it — you’ll be swimming in Santas all evening. Remember Bad Santa, in which a mall Santa spends most of the movie in drunken debauchery? Well, this is like living that out in real life. SantaCon is the local iteration of similar events — also called Santa Rampage, Santa Crawl, etc. — that take place throughout the country.

What compels these people to dress up and hit the streets in red fuzzy suits? Besides the holiday spirit, nothing in particular. The organizers encourage you to come in costume, and everyone is welcome. (And it might be called SantaCon, but really any Christmas-themed costume will do. Santa, after all, does need some reindeer, Christmas trees and elves.) Organizers also recommend that you bring cash because it will be pretty darn confusing for a bartender trying to run a tab for the 40th guy named Steve dressed like Santa.

This is my last weekend before my medical school exams, and then I’ll really be feeling the holiday spirit.

If you’re really not feeling the holiday vibes yet either, you might be stoked on Tyler, The Creator’s show Saturday at The Republik. In 2011, he rapped on Earl Sweatshirt’s F&%! This Christmas track with lyrics like “Drunk a fifth of eggnog, stole Santa’s reindeer” and “I’m the Christmas wrap from Satan.”

If you haven’t heard his solo stuff or any of his work as part of the Odd Future rap collective, you might have seen some of his designs around town in a collaboration with In4mation that had a cat-turtle hybrid on shirts, or the donut logos for his crew’s gear.

Last time he was in town, the show was super crazy. This dude goes off and jumps around and puts on a performance worth watching. There are some movies that aren’t really worth watching in the theaters and some bands that are better on a recording or video than live, but this show is definitely worth checking out in the flesh because it’s clear that he’s stoked to be there.

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