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12 Pubs of Christmas

Christmas merrymakers enjoy the 12 pubs

It’s getting to be Christmastime, and for many, that means shopping for gifts, wrapping presents, buying and decorating the ole tree and being generally stressed. However, for those fortunate enough to live in Dublin, Ireland, Christmastime means that inimitable tradition: the 12 pubs of Christmas.

The concept of the 12 pubs of Christmas is very simple: on one night each year before Christmas, groups of people gather together to go drinking at 12 different pubs across Dublin. The official 12 pubs, as far as I can tell, started in 1996 when a group of Irish booze-hounds decided to try and pick their way across the city, drinking as they went (as if Irish people needed any more excuse to go pub crawling, right?)

Since then, the 12 pubs of Christmas has grown into an international phenomenon, with groups organizing Christmas pub crawls in other cities like London, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cork and Wellington, New Zealand. Although there is an official Dublin 12 pubs of Christmas website, spin off groups have now taken the idea and made it their own, choosing pubs and picking a night to hit them all in one go. The official 12 pubs of Christmas crawl is scheduled for tomorrow night, December 5, 2009.

The rules of the 12 pubs of Christmas vary from group to group, but there is one commandment that holds for everyone: you must have one alcoholic drink per pub. For most, this involves pints of beer or stout, while others opt for shots of spirits or mixed drinks in lieu of beer. Other groups have more sophisticated rules, more like suggestions, such as “Don’t bring your Christmas shopping with you,” and “No kissy text messaging your significant other during the event.”

The official 2009 12 pubs of Christmas crawl starts at The Foggy Dew on Upper Fownes St. and continues around the corner to Goldsmiths Bar inside the Trinity Arch Hotel. From there, it crosses Dame St. to O’Briens (also known as the Mercantile), then on to the Stag’s Head, Bankers, and O’Neill’s and O’Donoghue’s (the one on Suffolk St.). From there, the crawl bypasses Grafton St. and heads up Dawson St. to The Duke (on Duke St. of course), then around the corner to Kehoe’s on South Anne St. The final loop of the crawl goes back up Dawson St. to the Dawson Lounge (Dublin’s smallest pub!), around to Grafton St, where it finishes up at the final two pubs: Bruxelles and McDaid’s next door.

Of course, you don’t have to participate in the official crawl, and many don’t, opting instead to design their own 12 pubs of Christmas routes in their own town or neighborhood. A few things to keep in mind if you’re designing your own 12 pubs of Christmas route:

• Stay within a nearby and walkable area. The last thing you want to do is have to spend cash on taxis or walk insane distances from one side of the city to the next.
• Keep it in the Christmas spirit – everyone is there to have fun and a few pre-Christmas laughs, so don’t get too anal about who arrives when or who drinks what.
• Start at a reasonably early hour. The odds are, most people in your group will never make it to 12 pints, but you don’t want to start at 10 pm and try to cram too many pubs into a short amount of time. That is a recipe for alcohol poisoning.
• Set time limits for each pub. It would be very easy to get side-tracked into staying at one pub. Designate a time keeper to make sure that everyone drinks up and moves on so that you can try to get to all 12 pubs.

Other than that, simply have fun and enjoy rediscovering your local haunts this Christmas. Be sure to take photos and post them online to embarrass your friends – wouldn’t be a proper pub crawl without that!