Hundreds of Santas gather in Denmark for midsummer congress

Hundreds of Santas, Mrs. Clauses and elves took over Aalborg, Denmark, on Wednesday, July 8, for the World Santa Claus Congress, a midsummer gathering that turned the city into a temporary outpost of the North Pole just as much of Europe sweltered.

The annual congress brought professional Santa performers together to swap stories, compare beards and compete in playful contests long before the holiday season. Peter Gislund, who works as Santa in Aalborg during Christmas, said the timing still surprises some families: “some grandparents think it is too early to visit, while children are delighted that Santa has arrived already.”

Aalborg Zoo, which partnered on this year’s event, listed the congress in its July 9 program and paired it with a full day of summer holiday activities running from June 27 through August 9. The zoo’s schedule included Santa Academy activities, Christmas games, singing, fashion shows, elf competitions, crowning new Santas and voting for Christmas 2025, along with animal feeds and Safari Simon shows. The setup made the congress part public festival, part industry gathering and part seasonal branding exercise for a city that uses the spectacle to extend its summer tourism draw.

The congress has deep roots. Historical accounts from the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame say Danish Santa Christian Jørgen Nielsen proposed a July “Christmas in July” Santa gathering in Denmark, and the first congress was held at Dyrehavsbakken near Copenhagen in July 1957. Danish Santa association materials say the event later moved to Aalborg on the Jutland peninsula, was last staged at Bakken in 2019 and was revived in Aalborg in 2024. Organizers say next year will mark its 70th anniversary.

Dansk Julemands Laug, the professional association that runs the congress for Santas, Mrs. Clauses and elves, says participants have come from Japan, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Spain, the United States, England, Hong Kong, El Salvador, France and Greenland. The group’s own history says the gathering once included a tradition of setting the date for Christmas Eve and discussing current Christmas issues, underscoring how a festive costume event became a forum for the working culture behind mall Santas and holiday performers.

The result is a tradition that has survived by adapting. In peak summer heat, with climate anxiety and shifting tourism patterns reshaping how European festivals compete for attention, Aalborg’s Santa congress has kept its draw by leaning into absurdity, nostalgia and repetition, while still functioning as a serious meeting place for a niche international profession.