Teenager creates family-friendly alternative to SantaCon

NEW YORK - "I had gone to SantaCon for two years," Brooklyn 15-year-old Sophie told Fox 5, Monday, "and I had fun but I couldn't participate since I was under 21."

So in January 2021, Sophie suggested to her dad they create an Elf Con, geared toward underage participants, swapping whatever those adult Santas swig in all those bars for a cafe-crawl's worth of frothy cups of cocoa.

"Come dressed up in all of your elf fantasticness," Sophie said.

The Elf Con founder and Chief Elf encouraged any interested to meet Sunday, Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. in Union Square Park for the inaugural Elf Con.

"If you donate $10 on elfcon.org," she said, "you can get an elf passport and if you complete the elf passport, then you get a special prize."

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Proceeds go toward two charities: The Trevor Project, dedicated to suicide prevention among LGBTQ youth, and the Making Headway Foundation, supporting families of children diagnosed with brain or spinal cord tumors.
"It'll be a jolly good time," Sophie said of Sunday's crawl.

Which, the locations of and how many hot chocolate establishments Elf Con plans to visit remains a secret. "We can't release that yet but in the coming days we'll release all the cocoa places," Sophie said.

Elf Con seeks not to take away from or frame SantaCon as some sloppy, street-clogging shameful day of debauchery, but instead, to give those too young to partake a more age-appropriate, wholesome alternative to hundreds of boozing Santas.

"When I went to SantaCon," Sophie said, "I wished that there was something I could do in the meantime while I wasn't in the bars. I hope this will be fun for all the kids and their families."