Falling leaves, eager artists, drunken Santas...

OK, THIS is how great Sacramento is: It's Dec. 8, and I'm sitting in my house with the screen door open. It's clear and blue and yellow and brown and red and even still bits of green outside, people - including me - are on bikes and on foot and the air is washed fresh by rain we REALLY needed. The clouds are off to the east, and the L Street Lofts loom over 18th and L, looking really grand. More than most of the buildings going up in the Grid, that one really adds a whole new feel to the area. Artists are done hanging there work in the galleries with care, in homes that some buyers soon will be there (it's Second Saturday).

And on 16th Street, there's a Santa on a bike! I follow, and as I get closer to the jail (don't ask why I'm going there), I see more and more Santas, until, at the jail itself, I find a crowd of at least four dozen Santas, all gearing up for what looks to be a hard mid-winter's eve of hard drinking. It's Santacon 2007, the annual snogfest held by the Sacramento Cacophony Society, a Christmas-meets-Satyricon mobile party, the goal of which is to spread as much Christmas cheer as possible without ending up IN the jail.

I caught them early in their travels, and they were relatively sober, but that was bound not to last. I last saw them heading off to the train station, but they had the weather on their side, if not the law. And if you missed this one, an even bigger Santacon takes place NEXT Saturday, the 15th, in San Francisco. Visit the Cacophony Society's website for more info.

In the meantime, dig these Santa's boots!