Copenhagen, 18 December 1974 At 12 noon a ferry arrived at the port, from where a group of about 100 Santa Claus landed. They brought a gigantic geese with them. The idea was to make a kind of “Trojan Goose” and, upon reaching the city, to pull the white beard costumes inside. However, due to a number of technical difficulties, they decided to drag the giant, handmade bird.
The country was undergoing a serious unemployment crisis, and the peculiar army of Santa Claus tried to awaken the shadowy population in the coming days, distributing candy, telling stories to the children, singing villancicos in the residences...
On 22 December, barriers to the newly closed General Motors factory were overcome and the factory and jobs were symbolically returned to its “owners”. The next day, on Christmas Eve, they entered the Magasin, the big warehouse. They took the books, toys and other merchandise from the shelves and started giving away to the customers: “Merry Christmas to everyone! No one has to pay anything today!” he screamed. Security guards began to take away gifts from people by force, and those responsible alerted the police. The police beat and arrested several Santa Claus among infant mourning and protests from many adults.
They wanted to denounce the system that drove the brutal Christmas consumerism among the population agitated by unemployment and, quite simply, “return to the workers the toys and gifts they themselves made”.
Some Santa Claus managed to escape and got into the nearest bank. They claimed SEK 50 million, but their intention was not to steal the money, but to obtain an interest-free loan that would then distribute the money among those who needed it most. They were also arrested immediately.
In 1969 they were part of the Solvognen (Chariot of the Sun) theatre group, formed in the community Christiania.En in the coming weeks a
debate was opened in the Danish media on the boundaries of theatre, the legitimacy of this type of suprarregional acts, the risks that freedom of expression could generate in democracy…
But the message that the activists wanted to spread was turned off. They wanted to denounce the system that drove the brutal Christmas consumerism among the population agitated by unemployment and, quite simply, “return to the workers the toys and gifts they themselves made”.