Christmas in July? Santas from around the world gather at Denmark

Santas from all over the world play in a band on board a boat as they gather on July 18, 2016 for the 59th World Santa Convention

Santas from all over the world play in a band on board a boat as they gather on July 18, 2016 for the 59th World Santa Convention.

Pics/AFP

Also called SantaCon, Santarchy, Santa Rampage, the Red Menace, and Santapalooza it is an annual mass gathering and pub crawl in which people dressed in Santa Claus costumes or as other Christmas characters parade in several cities around the world.

SantaCon originated in San Francisco in 1994 as an inspiration from a magazine article on the Danish activist theatre group Solvognen, who in 1974 gathered dozens of "Santas" in Copenhagen to hand out items from the shelves of a department store to customers as "presents" before getting arrested.

Staged by a local prankster group, the Cacophony Society, that had grown out of the earlier Suicide Club, as street theater, the aim was to make fun of Christmas and the rampant consumerism associated with the holiday.

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