SantaCon at Union Square in San Francisco

Until a few weeks ago I had no idea that there was such a thing as SantaCon, but clearly an awful lot of other people knew about it. There appeared to be thousands of people in red and white, stretching as far as I could see in every direction. I climbed up on the base of the monument to get a place where I could sit above the fray to sketch in peace and Cathy got this photo of me (see the green arrow.) I wore a red jacket for protective coloration but didn't want a tassel to get in the way of my sketching so left the Santa Hat at home.



Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, but there were cameras everywhere, making me wonder if it's still possible to know you're having a good time without constantly capturing photographic evidence to prove it?



The #RobotDanceParty moved slowly through the crowd blasting out music, and people obliged by breaking into wild dancing all around it (him?) But there was still a self-consciousness about it all: everything had to be captured on camera.


These nattily-dressed female reindeer seemed to be enjoying each others' company in a genuinely relaxed way, with only the occasional glance at a screen.