18,112 Santa Clauses break Guinness record

The archdiocese of Thrissur in Kerala Saturday created a new Guinness World Record when they assembled 18,112 Santa Clauses on the streets and broke the existing record set by Derry in Northern Ireland with 13,000.

The event, named "Boun Natale 2014", was the brainchild of Archbishop Andrews Thazhath, who had last year managed to parade 5,000 Santas.

Guinness officials were Saturday present to oversee the record-breaking event, and each and every Santa was bar-coded before they assembled, to make a scientific evaluation on the exact number.

Luciya, a Guinness representative from Britain, told the gathering that Saturday's event will be registered in the Guinness World Records as the largest assembly of Santas.

The announcement was greeted with a huge applause by the Santas.

Even though the official figure was registered as 18,112, the organisers said there were more, but could not be documented.

The procession of Santas began at 1 p.m and the announcement came after 4.30 p.m.

"The Guinness team with the help of new technology did the counting and it was for that barcodes was used for each of the Santas. There was an application process that each Santa had to go through and it came from the various parishes attached to the archdiocese," said Simon Joseph, an official of the Thrissur archdiocese.

Thrissur is often referred to as Kerala's cultural capital, and through this award winning effort, yet another feather has been added to its cap.