I sack-hopped like Santa Claus.

Dresden should be applauded for the incredible ways in which the Christmas season is celebrated. Why, you ask?

One word: Weihnachtsmannsackhüpfstaffelmarathon. No, seriously.

This is an event sponsored by one of the local student clubs, Bärenzwinger, that encourages members of other student clubs to take part in an annual Sack-Hopping Relay. Dressed as Santa Claus.

Starting the day bright and early at 9 am, the teams assemble in their respective clubs and begin migrating to the Bärenzwinger club in Altstadt, which is located right next to where the race is to go down. (Just as a time frame, sack-hopping teams start gathering around 9:30 or so and the actual sack-hopping extravaganza begins at 2. I’m going to reiterate here that this event happens in a park right outside of a student club…drinking is strongly encouraged and with so much time in between everyone’s arrival and the actual race, staying entirely sober isn’t often accomplished.)

In hopes of maintaining some form of grace in my mother’s eyes, I’ll assert here that I was not drunk for my sack-hopping debut…my stomach was already a bit unsettled and I don’t do well with alcohol before, say, noon. But I did witness everyone around me slowly, and in some cases quickly, drift off into oblivion (some of whom drifted so far off into that oblivion they were unable to finish their part of the relay on his/her own and had to be carried by hand and foot in order to pass the baton to me…I won’t name any names here, but it was Alex.)

So anyways, our team was team Gutz (Gutzkowclub representtttt) and we all wore matching red jumpsuits with Santa hats. We  congregated in the Gutz around 9 and enjoyed a nice breakfast of brötchen, cheese, and different variations of meat. Around 11 we piled into a taxi to take us to the main event…we arrived at Bärenzwinger a little after 11.15 due to traffic and to my surprise, there were Santa Claus’ everywhere. It was like Christmas time at Macy’s exploded in the middle of Dresden.

All the Santas were gathered around a main event that I will never forget, yet I’m still not exactly sure of it’s purpose. I think it was to determine how to number the teams, but the point doesn’t actually matter. Each team picked out three of its members and in a series of “mini sack races”, two teams would compete against each other.

The mini race went as follows:

1. Starting members sit on a keg, burlap sack in position over both feet.
2. Timer starts, competitors hop like little bunnies for about 15 feet.
3. They reach the beer table where they must “chug” a beer.
4. After beer has been successfully “chugged”, person must hop back to barrel.
5. They tag the next team member, who also has a burlap sack over feet.
6. This person must hop to the beer table. Chug a beer. Hop back to barrel. Tag last team member.
7. Last team member hops to beer table. Chugs beer. Hops back to barrel and sits down.
8. The first team to finish all the beers wins.

There were a few female competitors, but most of them were men…and some of these men had the most astonishing esophageal capabilities I have ever seen. I don’t understand the physics of it, but I don’t care. It was awesome.

After that, everyone pretty much did their own thing (beer…) until it was time to gather all the Santas together and follow the track of the real santa-sack-hoppin’ course. Each team would deposit one member at each stop where they would wait until the race began. (Assuming we don’t all know how a relay race works…there are stops placed along the course and after the first person completes his leg of it, he gives the person at the next stop the baton, that person completes their part of the course, gives the baton to the next person, etc. etc. etc.)

I was at stop number 5. Alex was placed at stop number 4 (“placed” being the operative word). He was supposed to hop in his cute little burlap-sack-santa-claus-outfit to me and hand me the baton. Reality was somewhat different. He did two really good, manly hops. After that, he spent a lot of time on the ground, doing some strange rolling motion–luckily, he was soon assisted by some gutz members who kindly gave him their shoulder to lean on as he hopped. That also worked really well for about two hops until he found his way again to the cement. At this point, he just sort of laid there with his arms flung above his head.

As we were already in last place and I had already watched helplessly as all my competitors left without me, the two kind Gutz members decided that it would be best for the team if they carried him to me. When he arrived, I grabbed the baton off his belly and thus began my first ever, and last, sack-hop experience.

The first hops were easy. And then I realized I had to do it for 100 meters. It suddently dawned upon me why Alex had thrust himself upon the ground and I contemplated doing it myself until I was close enough to pass some really terrible Santa Claus sack-hoppers. So I pushed it out, amidst the cries from my thighs and calves and weak lungs, and ended up making it to my target destination ALIVE while simultaneously beating two other Santas. I felt invincible. (We ended up in 18th place out of 20, but were actually disqualified because they carried Alex. Hahaha.)

All in all, it was a hilarious experience. Afterwards, I busied myself with a few sips of really delicious glühwein (hot spiced wine) here and there,  dabbled in some bratwursts, and strolled through the Christmas market, all while supervising Alex’s drunken wanderings. I’m pretty sure Santa would be proud.