Good people in bad Santa suits

This past weekend marked the re-emergence of the Santa Brigade, an all volunteer army of folks who are willing to act a fool just for the fun of it. It all started last year when I got a line on some cheap Santa suits down in Cave City, Kentucky - which I commonly refer to as the most magical place on earth. When presented with the opportunity to acquire 20+ cheaply made Santa suits at such a bargain, I jumped at the chance.

Through the miracle of Myspace the Santas were gathered for the initial coming out Santabration and invaded the My Morning Jacket/Wax Fang show in Louisville on Thanksgiving eve in the year 2006. There was no agenda so we just ran around like a bunch of nuts engaging in random acts of entertainment such as breakdancing (poorly), doing the wave and "ho-ho-ing" until our voices were gone.



This past weekend was a more humble offering of the Santa Brigade with a mere six Santas which can probably be attributed to no offering of free booze or free admission to see what the magazine's are calling "The best live band in America." We met in front of WHY Louisville and put on our bad Santa suits which almost everyone still had from last year. This is noteworthy because these suits are made of very fragile and highly flammable fabric. You certainly don't want to be near an open flame in these things. Each Santa suit consists of the following:


- Hat

- Jacket

- Beard

- Belt

- Trousers








We were handed our hymnals as prepared by Santa #2. Our mission was to sing carols (not of the holiday variety mind you) up and down the street during the annual neighborhood shopping extravaganza known as Bardstown Road Aglow. Armed with only our hymnals and a tuning pipe from Santa #4/F1 (F=Female), we hit the streets. We had no rehearsal and no idea what key each of our songs were in so we always started with the key of "C" which I have been told by a professional opera singer is "the people's key."

Our song list consisted of the following:

"Rock Me Amadeus" in the style of Falco
"Kokomo" in the style of The Beach Boys
"Ghostbusters" in the style of Ray Parker Jr.
"Friends in Low Places" in the style of Garth Brooks and/or Chris Gaines
"Rawhide" in the style of The Blues Brothers
"If you Wanna Be My Lover" in the style of The Spice Girls
"Convoy" in the style of C.W. McCall

We made about 15 stops and picked one or two songs for each. We were met with varied degrees of enthusiasm, apathy and/or fear. Highlight performances included the Spice Girls collaboration with the bucket drummer in front of Ramsi's Cafe and the breakthrough rendition of "Rawhide" when we figured out how to split up the final verse alternating between "Head 'em up" and "Ride 'em out" in front of Day's Coffee.



Words can't express the fondness I have for the folks in the Santa Brigade last week. They are good people and I can't think of a better group to run around in bad Santa suits with.