Danielle Dorsey wouldn’t miss it, so she’s flying in from Portland, Ore. “I can’t believe they are expecting 300 Santas this year,” Dorsey said. “I’m sure it’s going to be a blast.” Rhonda Lyons wants to be part of it, so she’s driving from Santa Rosa, Calif., with “15 or 20″ friends in four or five cars. “There are just Santas everywhere,” Lyons said. “It’s just a sea of red.” Matt Goedert started it, so he’s ready to lead the fifth Santa Crawl on Saturday in downtown Reno, where bands of crawlers dressed in Santa suits will visit any or all of 23 taverns and clubs, drink up and raise money for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. “Little kids would point at us,” Goedert said of previous all-night crawls. “Police cars would turn on their lights. We felt like rock stars.” It’s Christmas. Everybody, especially it seems bartenders, likes Santa. “Santas do tip well,” said Goedert, a Reno tax attorney. “Probably because we’re all over 30 and do other jobs.”

The idea sounds pretty simple. A few friends, looking for something fun to do the weekend before Christmas, dress in Santa suits and hit bars, as many as they can from 7 p.m. Saturday until sunup Sunday, or until they’ve had enough, whichever comes first. “No Santa has ever died on us,” Goedert said. Or been arrested for drunken driving. “We’ve never had any sort of incident,” said Tom Keefhaver, a former bartender, friend of Goedert’s and veteran crawler. “We’ve never had any sort of problems.” That’s probably because the Santas either come to the crawl and leave it in cabs or reserve hotel rooms. They’ll walk to the bars, most of which are located on or between East Fourth and West First streets. The crawl includes sober Santas who look after the party Santas. Eating is encouraged during the crawl. The Nugget in downtown Reno, with its popular hamburgers, is a crawl stop. Coffee drinking is allowed. One of the bar stops is Java Jungle.

The pro crawlers also have two main rules — pace yourself and drink water at every other bar. “Last year only three made it to every (bar),” Goedert said of the 2004 crawl, which drew 150 Santas. “One was me. It was about 6 or 7 in the morning.” This year, along with attracting twice the number of Santas, the crawl will be for charity. Participating bars will donate to the food bank, some giving a set amount or percentage of crawl profits and others $1 for every Santa served. The Santas buy their drinks. At one tavern, Abby’s Highway 40 on East Fourth Street, Santa suits are sold for $20 each, with $10 going to the food bank.

“They came stumbling in the first year,” said Donny Schwartz, Abby’s owner, recalling the 2001 crawl when Goedert and his buddies showed up. “It was a good thing. I just latched on after that.” For the crawl, Schwartz leaves his bar, puts on a red suit and joins the Santas. “It’s an ‘out of body experience,’ I’ll tell you,” he said.

The crawl for a “few friends” has become something of a social event and tourist attraction. “People from Missouri come out,” said Goedert, who maintains an Internet mailing list for the crawl. “People from New York are coming in. People fly in. We’ve had (foreign) exchange students.” The crawl, according to several Santas, isn’t just about drinking.

“The first year we did it, the moment that struck me the most, there was this guy walking down the street,” Keefhaver said. “He said, ‘Thank you for making my night, for making the holidays a little better.’” It started small in 2001, when Goedert, seeking holiday stress release, got six pals to go with him on the first crawl. “I hated Christmas,” Goedert said. “I just did not like the holidays. It was so busy. It’s so stressful. Everybody was having a good time. I’m doing taxes.” Goedert decided to have a good time. “I could only afford seven (Santa) suits,” he said. “I didn’t think anybody would do it after the first year.” Wrong.

The Reno Santa Crawl, advertised by word of mouth and on the Internet, grew. For the second crawl, 30 Santas showed up. A year later, the total was 68. Last year, the number more than doubled. This year’s crawl, if Goedert’s count is correct, will feature more Santas than the first four combined. “We thought we would top off at 50 people,” Goedert said. “When it got up to 150 last year, we said, ‘Wow, we can do a lot of good with this. We are going to shift it to raising money.’”

Here’s how the crawl expands: “There is a lady in the office,” said Lyons, who works in the Santa Rosa branch of a California government agency. “She knows one of the people who goes (to the crawl). She e-mailed me last year. She said, ‘I’m going to go to this. It’s going to be fun.’ They came and they were glad they came. They went and told all their friends. I told my friends. My hairdresser and her husband are going.” The crawl attracts people, such as Lyons, who want to dress like Santa and have an all-night party. They like doing it in Reno, where there’s no closing hour for bars. “We can’t hardly do anything in California,” Lyons said. “There are just so many restrictions. You go to Reno. It’s cool.”

Over the years, the crawl crowd has changed. There are more female than male Santas. “We try to promote more girl Santas,” said Goedert, who estimates 60 percent of the Santas are women. “The girls really enjoy the event and have a good time. It calms everybody down. If it was all guys, maybe they would drink a little too much.” After last year’s crawl, Goedert and Keefhaver realized they had something more than a bar hop. “There was so much energy involved with this event,” Keefhaver said. “Why not capture this energy and give some of it back to the community?” That’s why Goedert contacted the food bank, which supplies 85 social service agencies, and offered his crawl as a fundraiser. “We had no clue,” said Janice Hoke, food bank spokeswoman. “They chose us. We’re not stodgy over here at the food bank.”

Author: Don Cox, Coxdcox@rgj.com
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